Tomasz Sakiewicz, CEO and editor-in-chief of TV Republika, was summoned last week as a witness in an investigation into irregularities in Poland's Justice Fund, a state programme aimed at supporting crime victims.
Prosecutors wanted to know whether the station had offered a job to Ziobro, the former justice minister who is a suspect in the case and the subject of an arrest warrant.
Sakiewicz appeared before prosecutors but declined to answer most questions, citing journalistic privilege.
The National Public Prosecutor's Office said on Monday that the refusal was groundless, arguing Sakiewicz had been called not as a journalist, but as the company's chief executive, and that no legal basis for declining to testify applied in this case.
Under Polish law, prosecutors may impose a financial penalty on a witness who refuses to give evidence without justification; in this case the fine was set at PLN 3,000 (EUR 709).
Ziobro, who faces 26 criminal charges including directing an organised criminal group and manipulating the award of Justice Fund grants, left Europe on May 9, flying from Milan to New York on a foreign media journalist visa, according to the National Public Prosecutor's Office.
After arriving in the United States, he announced he would work as a correspondent for TV Republika, prompting prosecutors to question the station's chief executive about the arrangement.
He had previously spent several months in Hungary, where he had been granted international protection.
A European arrest warrant application is currently before a Warsaw court.
(ał/gs)
Source: PAP