Pegasus in Poland: 10 reports against people from the PiS era. Data, according to ABW, left the country

On Monday, October 12, the Polish parliamentary commission on Pegasus presented its final report and filed ten criminal reports against eleven former ministers, heads of secret services, prosecutors and other officials from the time of the PiS government. On the same day, the prosecutor's office published parts of the expert assessment by the Internal Security Agency (ABW), which the Prosecutor General had declassified at the end of August, and according to it the Central Anticorruption Bureau (CBA) did not have full control over the Israeli spyware, and data from it left Poland. Gazeta Wyborcza ↗ Prime Minister Donald Tusk speaks of a "crime of the state," while part of the right calls it a political witch hunt. What follows from this according to the Polish press, and where are its limits.

What the commission claims

The commission worked for nearly three years. Chairwoman Magdalena Sroka (PSL) said Pegasus cost 33.4 million zlotys, of which more than 8 million went to an intermediary, and according to her the total bill including operation is at least double that. Wirtualna Polska ↗ So far, 25 million from the Justice Fund, which was supposed to serve crime victims, had been publicly mentioned. On Monday Tusk spoke of more than 60 million in total, of which 25 million came from the Justice Fund. This does not necessarily contradict the commission; it merely defines differently what falls within the sum. Gazeta Wyborcza ↗

The reports target Zbigniew Ziobro, his associates Michał Woś and Mikołaj Pawlak, Mariusz Kamiński and Maciej Wąsik, service chiefs Ernest Bejda, Maciej Materka and Piotr Pogonowski, as well as Maciej Szpanowski of military counterintelligence, Grzegorz Ocieczek (whom the commission says lied in his testimony), and prosecutor Teresa Rutkowska-Szmydyńska, who led the investigation against Brejza. The commission accuses Ziobro of failing to fulfill duties, causing large-scale property damage, and disclosing classified information to a foreign entity. These are the commission's claims, not a court ruling. Gazeta Wyborcza ↗

What the ABW assessment says

ABW experts issued three assessments (April 2025, June and July 2026), which the Prosecutor General partially declassified on August 26. Wirtualna Polska ↗ They found that CBA did not have passwords to part of the administrator accounts, the device-infection module was under the exclusive control of the manufacturer, the manufacturer managed the anonymization network, and data left Polish territory. TVN24 ↗ A crucial clarification: the experts did not confirm that NSO actually accessed the material, only that it had the technical ability to do so. Sroka put it more strongly, saying the company had "full access." Wirtualna Polska ↗

According to the commission, the system never received ABW accreditation, CBA did not even apply for it, courts were misled about the nature of the tool, and it could not be used against phone numbers registered in Russia, China, North Korea or Belarus. Rzeczpospolita ↗ Minister of Justice Żurek summed it up: "This was not a fight against crime. It was a threat to the security of the Republic of Poland." Onet ↗

Who was affected and who has already been charged

The report names four people who were surveilled because of their public or political activity: judge Beata Morawiec, prosecutor Ewa Wrzosek, the mayor of Sopot Jacek Karnowski, and Krzysztof Brejza. According to the commission, 85,000 messages were downloaded from Brejza's phone, their content was manipulated, and it ended up broadcast on public television. Unofficially, the prosecutor's office is said to have found 31 politically motivated cases out of 578 uses. Gazeta Wyborcza ↗ The prosecutor's office has been conducting a separate investigation since March 2024 and has already charged seven people, including former heads of CBA, ABW and SKW. Do Rzeczy ↗

What the right says about it

PiS MP Radosław Fogiel wrote: "Reports about the assassination attempt didn't work, so let's launch Pegasus?" He accused the government of focusing on political witch-hunting instead of equipping the services with tools. Do Rzeczy quotes journalist Rafał Otoka-Frąckiewicz, according to whom part of Tusk's "news" has been known since 2022, and already by its headline suggests the timing is meant to divert attention from Sunday's reports about an alleged assassination plot against Tusk. Do Rzeczy ↗ In September 2025, Ziobro told the commission that he had initiated the purchase and would do it again, because the state needs a tool against crime. PiS calls the commission unlawful, citing a ruling by the Constitutional Tribunal, which the coalition does not recognize. Notes from Poland ↗

Limits of this view

Most sources quote the coalition-led commission and the prosecutor's office under Minister Żurek, who is also the prosecutor general. Wyborcza, TVN24 and Onet are closer to the government, Do Rzeczy to PiS, and the classified part of both the report and the assessment is not public. The sums are defined differently across sources, and the figure of 578 cases is unofficial. In Slovak and Czech news from the past seven days, we found nothing on the Polish Pegasus case.

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*Illustrative photo: entrance to the Sejm building of the Republic of Poland in Warsaw. Wikimedia Commons, public domain.*