WARSAW, May 11 (Reuters) – Poland will seek answers about how a former minister wanted on abuse of power charges managed to travel from Hungary to the United States, a foreign ministry spokesperson said on Monday, after Warsaw’s hopes of bringing him to trial were thwarted.
Former Polish Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro and his deputy Marcin Romanowski were granted asylum in Hungary by Viktor Orban, but Warsaw had hoped the former prime minister’s defeat by pro-EU rival Peter Magyar in an April election meant they would soon be brought back to Poland.
They had been stripped of their passports. The whereabouts of Romanowski were unclear.
“We will ask both the United States and Hungary for the legal and factual basis on which Zbigniew Ziobro left Hungarian territory,” Polish foreign ministry spokesperson Maciej Wewior told Reuters.
“And specifically, what document allowed him to cross the border and gave him the right to enter the United States… We hope that this situation will be resolved and that it will not affect the very good relations between the United States and Poland.”
The U.S. embassy in Warsaw and the Hungarian foreign ministry did not immediately reply to emailed requests for comment.
Ziobro told private Polish broadcaster TV Republika on Sunday that he was in the U.S., confirming earlier media reports. The station, which supports the nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party under which Ziobro served as a minister, said he would work for them as a political commentator.
Ziobro is the architect of court reforms that the European Union said had reduced judicial independence in Poland during the PiS government’s rule from 2015 to 2023. He faces 26 charges primarily relating to misuse of money from a fund intended to help victims of crime for political gain.
(Reporting by Alan CharlishEditing by Gareth Jones)
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