(Bloomberg) -- Police detained a member of the management board of Poland’s central bank on Monday to make him cooperate with a parliamentary investigation into the use of Pegasus spyware under the previous government.
Piotr Pogonowski, who is not a member of the Monetary Policy Council that sets interest rates, ran the country’s Internal Security Agency between 2015 and 2020. He previously refused to testify before a parliamentary committee examining whether the former Law & Justice administration deployed Pegasus to spy on its political opponents.
The former security chief stated that security issues shouldn’t be discussed at open hearings, saying that the secret services should have access to cutting-edge surveillance. However, he sought to distance himself from the scandal, saying that he “first learned about something called Pegasus from the media.”
He may be freed following his testimony, which started at 10 a.m on Monday. The central bank expressed concern about his detention and questioning, saying in a statement that the parliamentary committee was not functioning legally.
Pogonowski’s detention is another manifestation of Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s drive to hold Law & Justice politicians accountable for their alleged wrongdoing during their time in power. Tusk’s administration has struggled to revert moves by the nationalist government that undermined the rule of law.
Pogonowski told the committee on Monday that had previously refused to testify after the Constitutional Tribunal ruled the probe unconstitutional. The country’s highest court is stacked with judges close to Law & Justice and its impartiality has also been questioned by the European Union’s own tribunal.
This is not the first time Poland’s central bank has featured in Tusk’s campaign. Pogonowski was appointed as a member of its board in 2020 at the request of the Governor Adam Glapinski, who is himself under investigation by a separate parliamentary committee. Glapinski, a Law & Justice ally, is accused by the current administration of politicizing central bank decisions.
Glapinski has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing and signaled that he wouldn’t participate in the parliamentary probe, which the central bank and the top court say has no legal basis. The ruling coalition in Warsaw considers the court to be politicized by Law & Justice and has largely ignored its decisions.
(Updates with comments from Pogonowski’s testimony and context on case against Adam Glapinski from paragraph four)
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