Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski said on Wednesday that he would speak with the US ambassador to Warsaw, Tom Rose, after Poland asked Washington to explain how Ziobro, a former justice minister wanted by Polish prosecutors, entered the United States.
Ziobro, a lawmaker with the right-wing opposition Law and Justice (PiS) party, said on Sunday that he was in the United States and denied fleeing Poland.
He said he was using a document issued to him after he received international protection in Hungary.
On Tuesday, Poland’s foreign ministry sent a diplomatic note to the US embassy in Warsaw asking for the legal and factual basis of Ziobro’s entry into the United States. It also asked what travel document he used and when he crossed the border.
Asked by broadcaster TVN24 what he expected from the US administration, Sikorski said: “My expectations are clear, that fugitives from Polish justice stand before it, meaning that they return to the country.”
The foreign minister said Polish-American relations were deep and based primarily on shared security needs. He added that “swindlers are not able to disturb them.”
Sikorski said the Polish justice ministry was also conducting its own correspondence with US authorities. He added that Poland would submit documents under the extradition procedure contained in an agreement that Ziobro signed himself when he was justice minister.
Sikorski also said he hoped President Karol Nawrocki, an ally of the opposition, had not played any role in Ziobro’s departure to the United States.
Sikorski said the political right had boasted of Nawrocki’s personal relationship with US President Donald Trump, and added that he hoped the president would “help bring fugitives back to Poland.”
Ziobro is a suspect in an investigation by the National Public Prosecutor’s Office into the Justice Fund, a state fund originally intended to help crime victims and people leaving prison.
Prosecutors accuse him of offenses including leading an organized criminal group while serving as justice minister and prosecutor-general.
Ziobro denies wrongdoing.
The Sejm, the lower house of Poland’s parliament, lifted Ziobro’s immunity on November 7, and approved his detention and possible arrest.
Prosecutors then issued a decision to present him with 26 charges and ordered that he be detained and brought in by the Internal Security Agency (ABW).
The move failed because Ziobro was not in Poland.
Sikorski said the fact that a former justice minister and deputy leader of the largest opposition party had left rather than respect Polish law was “compromising for PiS.”
He also referred to Marcin Romanowski, a former deputy justice minister and PiS lawmaker who is a suspect in the same investigation.
Sikorski said media reports suggested Romanowski had “logged in” at a right-wing institute in Washington, identified in the interview as the Institute of World Politics.
Sikorski said he would also speak soon with his Hungarian counterpart. Poland wants to know how Ziobro and Romanowski left Hungary, where Ziobro had received international protection under Viktor Orbán’s government.
Ziobro’s departure from Hungary came after Péter Magyar, sworn in as Hungary's prime minister last Saturday, had said during the election campaign that PiS politicians remaining in the country would face extradition.
(rt/gs)
Sources: IAR, PAP
Click on the audio player above for a report by Agnieszka Bielawska.