Top Polish anti-corruption official resigns amid spyware probe

The head of the Polish government’s anti-corruption bureau resigned under pressure Thursday after officials leading the country’s commission investigating wide-scale spyware abuse criticized her for allegedly withholding information.

Agnieszka Kwiatkowska-Gurdak, head of the Central Anti-Corruption Bureau (CBA), testified before the commission Tuesday, saying she could not share information it sought for operational secrecy reasons and because of the need to safeguard criminal probes, according to local news reports.

The deputy head of the investigating commission, Marcin Bosacki, accused Kwiatkowska-Gurdak of having “interpreted too broadly her right not to inform the commission about the knowledge she possesses,” local news reports said.

Poland’s justice ministry has said that almost 600 people, many of whom opposed the former ruling party, were targeted with the powerful zero-click spyware Pegasus between 2017 and 2022.

An official in the former ruling party, which is seen as having carried out the spyware abuses, criticized Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk for allegedly forcing Kwiatkowska-Gurdak out.

"To win applause from his own fanatics, he [Tusk] boasts on X that he forced the head of a service to resign — just because she refused to take part in the political circus that its participants call a 'committee,'” politician Radosław Fogiel said on X.

Since taking power from the Law and Justice (PiS) party in December 2023, Tusk’s government has led aggressive efforts to uncover who in the Polish government was responsible for the spyware abuses.

Late last month, the country’s former justice minister was arrested. Authorities alleged that he approved using government money to pay for spyware.