WARSAW (Reuters) - Seven people were charged as a result of an investigation into alleged misuse of funds managed by the Polish justice ministry under the previous government, a prosecution spokesman said on Wednesday.
The prosecution is now also analysing evidence to decide whether to request that some lawmakers be stripped of their parliamentary immunity about the investigation, the spokesman said.
The probe focuses on the alleged misuse of money from Justice Fund, set up to help victims of crime when it was run by the government of the nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party.
PiS lost power in October 2023 to a coalition of pro-European parties and the new government headed by the coalition's leader Donald Tusk has vowed to hold to account those accused of breaking the law during PiS's eight-year rule.
Earlier on Wednesday and Tuesday special services searched the residences of several former government officials, including the home of former justice minister Zbigniew Ziobro, and a parliamentary hotel room of his former deputy Michal Wos.
Wos, who oversaw the Justice Fund, said his home outside Warsaw was also searched.
"I have nothing to reproach myself for, everything was legal when I supervised the Justice Fund," Wos told reporters and said he would file a complaint against the prosecution.
Ziobro, who has also denied any wrongdoing, said he had to interrupt chemotherapy he was undergoing because of Tuesday's search of his house, calling it a "spectacle of banditry and lawlessness".
A Reuters analysis of company filings and statements showed firms have seen more than one, oh, $7 billion in write-downs and lost revenue.
Ziobro was the architect of a judicial overhaul that critics said undermined the independence of the courts.
A former Supreme Audit Office president told a parliamentary commission on Wednesday that he had evidence that 25 million zlotys ($6.3 million) from the fund were spent on Pegasus spyware which Tusk's government says PiS used against some of its politicians.
Local media reported the funds were also used to curry favour among the party's rural voters, such as by buying fire engines or equipment for country housewives' associations.
Ruling Civic Platform lawmakers told reporters they would ask the electoral commission to investigate whether the funds were also used by PiS in its last electoral campaign.
"If so, it would mean that PiS could lose its subsidy - almost 100 million zlotys over four years", Dariusz Jonski said.
The prosecution said on Wednesday it gathered enough evidence to charge five people this week - four Justice Ministry employees and a representative of one of the Fund's beneficiaries - in addition to two others that had been charged earlier.
"A former director and two specialists were charged for allowing for the payment of over 66 million zlotys to an entity that did not meet formal requirements," the prosecution spokesman said. "Everything indicates that the motivation was political."