http://www2.polskieradio.pl/eo/dokument.aspx?iid=75392

Accusations of phone tapping continue

07.02.2008

A member of the ruling Civic Platform party has reiterated accusations that the previous government ordered illegal phone tapping.

 

“We lived in a police state,” Zbigniew Chelbowski, Civic Platform MP, told Radio ZET. “Everyone had to take into account that they were under surveillance,” he claims.

 

The MP added that he has ordered expert opinion if the minister of justice, during a secret parliamentary sitting tomorrow, will be allowed to say the whole truth about whether phones were tapped illegally by the special services during the period when the previous Law and Justice government was in power.

 

“We obviously want to know the scale of the phone tapping,” said Chlebowski, but was not sure if the minister of justice will be allowed to give the names of persons under surveillance.

Meanwhile, Justice Minister Zbigniew Ćwiąkalski announced that he will not give any names of persons currently under surveillance by the Internal Security Agency (ABW) on Sunday. “I cannot disclose any names, because this information is a part of the investigation and moreover there is no reason to disclose them,” he said at a press conference.  He added that the fact that the parliamentary sitting is secret is not enough to disclose the information about the tapping.

The phone tapping issue started a few days ago, when Janusz Zemke (Left and Democrats), chairman of the parliamentary Special Services Committee, announced that when Law and Justice was in power, the ABW illegally extended the time of surveillance in at least 94 cases. (mo)