{"id":951731,"date":"2026-05-11T02:57:19","date_gmt":"2026-05-11T02:57:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/951731\/"},"modified":"2026-05-11T02:57:19","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T02:57:19","slug":"polish-ex-minister-flees-hungary-to-the-us-after-pm-magyar-says-country-wont-protect-people-wanted-elsewhere-poland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/951731\/","title":{"rendered":"Polish ex-minister flees Hungary to the US after PM Magyar says country won\u2019t protect people wanted elsewhere | Poland"},"content":{"rendered":"

Poland\u2019s former justice minister Zbigniew Ziobro, wanted on several criminal charges in his home country, has fled Hungary to the United States, he confirmed on Sunday, after being granted asylum from former Hungarian prime minister<\/a> Viktor Orb\u00e1n\u2019s<\/a> government last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am in the United States,\u201d Ziobro told rightwing Polish broadcaster Republika. \u201cI arrived yesterday, and this is my third time travelling around the country,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Ziobro faces up to 25 years in prison in Poland<\/a> if convicted of the charges laid against him. They include abuse of power, leading an organised criminal enterprise and using funds meant for crime victims to buy Israeli Pegasus spyware, allegedly to monitor political opponents.<\/p>\n

He has rejected the charges against him, accusing the centrist Polish government of conducting a witch-hunt against conservatives.<\/p>\n

After Orb\u00e1n\u2019s party was ousted from power in an election in April, Hungary\u2019s new prime minister, P\u00e9ter Magyar<\/a> \u2013 who was sworn in on Saturday \u2013 said that Hungary<\/a> would no longer protect people wanted elsewhere.<\/p>\n

\u201cHungary will no longer be a dumping ground for internationally wanted criminals,\u201d he told journalists the day after his victory, naming as examples Ziobro and his former deputy, Marcin Romanowski, suspected of embezzling nearly 40m euros ($47m).<\/p>\n

The Republika broadcaster reported earlier on Sunday that Ziobro was in the US, while liberal broadcaster TVN24 published a photo of Ziobro at Newark Liberty International airport, which it said had been taken by another traveller.<\/p>\n

It is unclear how Ziobro managed to travel to the US, as Poland<\/a> had previously said his travel documents \u2013 including his Polish and diplomatic passports \u2013 had been revoked.<\/p>\n

Local news site Onet reported that Ziobro had received a US journalist visa linked to Republika. The broadcaster, aligned with the Polish right, later announced it had hired the ex-justice minister as its political commentator in the US.<\/p>\n

The current Polish justice minister, Waldemar Zurek, wrote on X that Poland \u201cwill reach out to the USA and Hungary with questions regarding the legal basis that enabled Zbigniew Ziobro to \u2026 enter the United States despite lacking valid documents\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will not cease or efforts to ensure that he and Mr. Marcin Romanowski are held accountable before the Polish justice system,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Earlier, Zurek told the Polsat broadcaster: \u201cIf it is confirmed that Ziobro is in the USA, then [Poland] will request his extradition.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ziobro was the leader of the ultra-conservative Sovereign Poland party, a junior coalition partner of the nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party, and served as justice minister and attorney general between 2015 and 2023.<\/p>\n

He is also known as the architect of contentious judicial reforms<\/a>, which sparked a standoff between Poland and the European Commission.<\/p>\n

Asked by Republika about his potential extradition, Ziobro replied: \u201cI am ready to appear before any court, and an American independent court is certainly an independent court.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf they want to initiate extradition proceedings, by all means,\u201d he added, calling extradition cases in US courts \u201ca demanding procedure\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Poland\u2019s former justice minister Zbigniew Ziobro, wanted on several criminal charges in his home country, has fled Hungary…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":951732,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5311],"tags":[49,978,659],"class_list":{"0":"post-951731","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-united-states","9":"tag-us","10":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/951731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=951731"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/951731\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/951732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=951731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=951731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=951731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}