The Reuters news agency reported this week, citing three people familiar with the matter, that US Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau instructed senior State Department officials to facilitate and approve a visa for Ziobro, enabling him to travel from Hungary to the United States.
"For several days now we have had official information that the suspect, Zbigniew Ziobro, left Europe on May 9 and flew from Milan to New York by plane," Przemysław Nowak, a spokesman for the National Public Prosecutor's Office, told reporters.
Zbigniew Ziobro. Photo: Art Service/PAP
Nowak said Ziobro travelled on a foreign media journalist visa.
After arriving in the United States, Ziobro announced that he would work as a correspondent for right-wing Polish broadcaster TV Republika.
Polish authorities are seeking to prosecute Ziobro, the architect of a judicial overhaul that the European Union said undermined the rule of law when the conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party was in power from 2015 to 2023.
Ziobro faces 26 charges linked mainly to the alleged misuse of money from a crime victims' fund for political gain.
He has denied wrongdoing, saying he is the target of a politically motivated campaign by Poland’s pro-European Union government.
(gs)
Sources: TVP Info, Reuters, IAR, PAP