Poland will request that both Hungary and the United States provide the legal and factual grounds that allowed former Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro to leave Hungarian territory and enter the United States. This was announced on Monday by Polish Foreign Ministry spokesman Maciej Wiewióra.
Warsaw had previously been counting on the extradition of Ziobro and his deputy Marcin Romanowski, both of whom had been granted asylum in Hungary with the backing of Viktor Orbán. Polish authorities’ hopes were bolstered after the April parliamentary elections saw the defeat of pro-European politician Péter Magyar — but those hopes ultimately went unfulfilled.
“We will address both the United States and Hungary with a request to provide the legal and factual grounds on which Zbigniew Ziobro left Hungarian territory,” Wiewióra told Reuters. “Specifically, what document allowed him to cross the border and entitled him to enter the United States. We hope this situation will be resolved and that it will not affect the very good relations between the US and Poland.”
The US Embassy in Warsaw and Hungary’s Foreign Ministry had not yet responded to requests for comment.
On Sunday, Ziobro himself confirmed his presence in the United States in an interview with the private Polish television channel TV Republika, which is aligned with the nationalist Law and Justice party (PiS). According to the channel, the former minister will work for it as a political commentator.
Both Ziobro and Romanowski had previously had their passports confiscated — yet this did not prevent the former from leaving Hungary. The whereabouts of Marcin Romanowski remain unknown.
Zbigniew Ziobro was a central figure in the PiS government (2015–2023) and the chief architect of judicial reforms that the European Union repeatedly criticised for undermining the independence of the judiciary. He faces 26 charges in Poland, the majority of which relate to the misuse of funds from a crime victims’ assistance fund for political purposes.