Justice Minister and Prosecutor-General Waldemar Żurek said Poland has a treaty with Washington allowing it to seek extradition on the basis of "a non-final ruling," though he acknowledged US federal courts have sometimes required a final conviction in similar cases.
"We have the relevant agreement with the United States," Żurek said on Wednesday, adding that prosecutors would use "every method" to determine the whereabouts of Ziobro and fellow conservative party Law and Justice (PiS) lawmaker Marcin Romanowski, who is also a suspect in the same case.
Żurek said he had asked Hungarian authorities to clarify where the two politicians are and on what basis they left Hungary.
He also suggested Ziobro may have obtained a so-called Geneva passport—a travel document issued to holders of international protection status—but said he did not want to speculate.
Ziobro, whose Polish passports were invalidated last year, said on Sunday he had not fled Poland and was traveling on a document linked to asylum status granted to him in Hungary under former Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.
He also announced he would work as a political commentator for Polish conservative broadcaster TV Republika.
Poland's National Public Prosecutor's Office said on Monday it had launched proceedings to determine whether anyone helped Ziobro evade criminal responsibility, and summoned TVN Republika's editor-in-chief Tomasz Sakiewicz as a witness to explain his hiring—and whether it constitutes the offense of aiding a fugitive.
Prosecutors allege Ziobro led a criminal organization and abused his ministerial position in connection with the Justice Fund, a state program originally intended to help crime victims and people leaving prison.
The Polish lower house stripped him of parliamentary immunity in November, approving all 26 charges against him and authorizing his arrest, but an attempt to detain him failed when he could not be found in Poland.
Ziobro had been sheltering in Hungary, where Orbán's government granted him international protection.
Hungary's newly sworn-in Prime Minister Péter Magyar had said during his campaign that he would extradite the two PiS politicians if they remained in the country after his election victory.
(jh/gs)
Source: PAP