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Kaczynski acknowledges the acquisition of ‘Pegasus’; denies its use in spying on the opposition

Poland leader of the ruling National Conservative Party “Law and Justice” (PiS) Yaroslav Kaczynski The country has acknowledged that the state has acquired the Israeli company NSO Group ‘s Pegasus spyware, but has denied its use in spying on government opponents.

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Kaczynski said in an excerpt from an interview published on wPolityce.pl on Friday that Pegasus spyware is being used by secret services in many countries to fight crime and corruption. He added that Pegasus was technologically superior to previous eavesdropping systems, which did not allow law enforcement to intercept encrypted messages.

“It would be bad if the Polish services did not have this kind of tool,” he said in an interview published in the weekly magazine “Sieci”.

The politician has stated that he sees no reason to form a parliamentary inquiry commission and has denied that the use of spyware would have affected the results of the 2019 parliamentary elections.

“There is nothing, no facts except opposition hysteria. There is no Pegasus case, no espionage,” he said. “No Pegasus, no services, no secret information was relevant to the 2019 election campaign. They lost because they lost. They should not look for excuses now,” Kaczynski said of the opposition.

In recent days, Kaczynski’s allies have denied that Poland has purchased and used Pegasus.

Polish Prime Minister Matthew Moravecki has said he knew nothing about espionage, but added that if confirmed, it could turn out to be the job of foreign secret services.

Critics deny foreign service interest in Pegasus’ three goals in Poland.

Citizen Lab, a Canadian cybersecurity organization, said in late December that Pegasus had been used in Poland to spy on prominent members of the opposition. Polish media have already called the scandal “Polish Watergate”.

On Thursday, Amnesty International also confirmed in an independent investigation the Citizen Lab’s finding that Pegasus had been used against the opposition Civic Platform politician Krzysztof Breaza, who coordinated the party’s 2019 election campaign. Text messages stolen from Brances’ telephone were falsified and broadcast on public television during the pre-election campaign. PiS won the election by a small margin.

Breeze now insists the election is not fair because the ruling party had access to the campaign’s tactical plans.

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