Polish officers raid former justice minister in country-wide sweep

WARSAW — Polish law enforcement officers stormed the houses of former top government officials, including an ex-justice minister, on Tuesday in an investigation into alleged misuse of funds under the previous Law and Justice (PiS) party government.

Four people were detained.

Authorities entered the home of former Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro, who was not present, as well as other former senior justice ministry officials’ residences. Prosecutors are investigating whether 285 million złoty (€66 million) of a special funds meant to compensate crime victims was misused under Ziobro for political aims.

There are also allegations that the fund was used to buy Pegasus spyware. Parliament is conducting an inquiry into whether Pegasus was used to snoop on opposition politicians during PiS’s time in power.

“The evidence collected so far shows that this is a very serious criminal case. There was a need to obtain further evidence, which could not be gathered otherwise than by carrying out searches,” the National Prosecutor’s Office said in a statement.

PiS, now in opposition, seized on the probe to claim the new coalition government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk is trampling on the rule of law in an effort to persecute its political enemies.

“They want to cover up gross electoral lies with political revenge in its pure form,” tweeted former Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki.

Patryk Jaki, a member of the European Parliament and a political ally of Ziobro, said officials “smashed windows and vandalized the house” of Ziobro while he is undergoing treatment for cancer, adding that these were “gangster” methods.

But the government isn’t backing down.

Interior Minister Marcin Kierwiński tweeted: “Today’s action by the prosecutor’s office and services is a clear signal that the Polish state is working. And there is no longer a ‘caste of the immune.’ Whoever committed a crime will be held accountable for it. This is a simple principle.”

Tusk also twisted the knife on his political foes by playing on the name of their party, tweeting: “Let the law always mean the law, and justice — justice.”

While the current opposition charges that the investigation is biased and politically motived, the new government says that under Ziobro — who was both justice minister and chief prosecutor — prosecutors avoided investigations that could harm PiS and its allies.

The searches come just over two weeks before local elections in Poland, which Tusk’s government sees as an opportunity to remove PiS’s lingering grip on some regional parliaments.

PiS, meanwhile, hopes the local elections will allow it to regain momentum after losing power on the national level in October. The former ruling party also believes that a good showing will help it in June’s EU election.