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Poland investigates how wanted fugitive former minister left Hungary for US

Jakub Krupa

Meanwhile, Poland’s former justice minister Zbigniew Ziobro, wanted by Polish authorities with allegations of over 20 criminal charges, moved to the US over the weekend, leaving Hungary where he held political asylum granted by the previous government of Viktor Orbán.

Ziobro was one of the most prominent faces of the PiS government and played a central role in its controversial judiciary reforms, which critics say undermined the rule of law and the independence of courts, leading to prolonged conflict with the EU.

He is being investigated on 26 charges, with prosecutors alleging that he ran a criminal group and abused his position through the misuse of resources from a fund designed to help victims of crime. He denies the allegations, and claimed asylum in Hungary in January.

His move to leave Budapest coincides with the inauguration of the new pro-European government of Péter Magyar, who publicly said he would revoke the previous government’s decision to grant him protection and extradite the minister back to Poland.

Ziobro confirmed his whereabouts in an interview with the right-wing broadcaster Republika TV which also announced him as their “political commentator” based in the US.

“I am in the United States, I arrived yesterday,” he said, adding the US was “an extremely complex, beautiful country, the strongest democracy in the world,” and Poland’s “ally, the guarantor of Poland’s security.”

Ziobro had his Polish passports revoked last year as part of the investigation into 26 alleged abuses of power, but given his asylum status in Hungary, he was given an international refugee passport.

“These are well-known procedures associated with granting a citizen the right of asylum, [when] one also uses appropriate documents that allow them to move around the world. I have had such a document all the time and I used it effectively,” he told Republika.

The so-called Geneva passport, however, would require a visa to enter the US, raising questions over whether the broadcaster, with close links to Donald Trump and the US Republicans, may have applied for a US visa for the former minister.

Despite being wanted by Poland under domestic law, a follow-up motion to issue a European Arrest Warrant has yet to be decided by courts.

Ziobro insisted that he “will gladly stand before any court, and an … American court is certaintly an independent court.”

“If they want to bring an extradition case, go ahead; as prosecutor general [in the past], I remember my battles in extradition cases involving the US, and it is a demanding procedure,” he said.

The former minister doubled down on his claims that he could not face a fair trial in Poland, implying that Poland’s prime minister Donald Tusk would try to politically interfere with his case.

“That’s the advantage of this situation, this American freedom,” he said. “You can fight [in court] on fair terms, before an independent American court, and certainly, if such a moment comes, I will do so and not have a single bit of fear that Donald Tusk will have an influence on the case by handpicking a judge.”

Poland’s deputy foreign minister Marcin Bosacki told journalists on Monday morning that Polish authorities were “clarifying the matter and looking forward to serious talks with our American partners on how did Zbigniew Ziobro end up in the United States?”

“We very much hope that this matter will not cast a shadow over … traditionally good bilateral relations between Poland and America,” he said.

Bosacki revealed that “not so long ago the American ambassador assured us that the United States had no intention of hosting Zbigniew Ziobro on its territory.”

Separately, Poland’s public prosecutor’s office said it was investigating the circumstances surrounding his travel to the US to determine if anyone helped him to “flee and evade criminal responsibility, thereby obstructing the investigation” into alleged irregularities.

“Everything suggests the suspect, Zbigniew Ziobro, has chosen to continue evading the Polish justice system,” the prosecutor’s office’s spokesperson, Przemysław Nowak, told a press conference.

“Zbigniew Ziobro has not had a passport for many months, so one thing is certain: [he] certainly did not enter the United States under general rules,” Nowak said.

He also said the prosecutors will ask the US to clarify if Ziobro or his deputy, Marcin Romanowski, who also claimed asylum in Budapest but reportedly left over the weekend, were granted US visas.

If the US confirmed it granted Ziobro a visa, prosecutors would seek to request extradition from the US, he said, but warned that it would likely be an extremely complex “and often difficult” procedure and could take even “years”.

“The extradition procedure with the United States is usually lengthy and is not an easy procedure. I am speaking of … ‘a standard’ extradition, when it concerns non-media proceedings and persons … on standard terms. Well, there is a suspicion that perhaps in this case we have certain non-standard rules for crossing the border by the suspect,” he said.

(Amazingly, Nowak said the extradition process was last updated in 2006, when Ziobro was… the justice minister.)