Zbigniew Ziobro flees Hungary for United States

Poland’s former justice minister Zbigniew Ziobro has left Hungary for the United States, after Hungary’s new prime minister Péter Magyar said his government would no longer shield people wanted elsewhere, according to Agence France-Presse via the Guardian. Ziobro confirmed he had arrived in the US, while Polish officials said they would seek clarification on how he entered despite Poland having revoked his travel documents.

Ziobro is wanted in Poland on several criminal charges, which AFP reports include abuse of power, leading an organised criminal enterprise, and misuse of funds intended for crime victims to buy Pegasus spyware. Ziobro denies wrongdoing and has framed the case as political retaliation. The practical problem for Warsaw is less the rhetoric than the geography: a suspect who had been physically present inside the EU’s legal space has now moved into a jurisdiction where extradition becomes a separate, slower contest, with its own evidentiary and procedural demands.

The episode also tests the durability of the informal protections that flourished under the previous Hungarian government. AFP reports that Hungary granted Ziobro asylum last year under Viktor Orbán, whose party lost power in April. Magyar, sworn in on Saturday, publicly rejected the idea that Hungary should serve as a refuge for people sought by partner states, naming Ziobro and his former deputy Marcin Romanowski. In practice, that stance turns what used to be a political relationship into an administrative one: asylum decisions, border checks, and travel documents stop being treated as discretionary favors and start looking like liabilities that a new government wants off its books.

Poland’s justice minister Waldemar Zurek said on X that Warsaw would contact the US and Hungary about the legal basis for Ziobro’s entry, and told Polsat that Poland would request extradition if Ziobro’s US presence is confirmed, AFP reports. Polish outlet Onet reported that Ziobro received a US journalist visa linked to the broadcaster Republika, which announced it had hired him as a political commentator. That arrangement gives Ziobro a platform and a paycheck while also supplying a narrative for why he is in the country, even as Polish prosecutors prepare to argue he is there to avoid court.

For Magyar, the first week in office has produced a concrete demonstration of what “not protecting internationally wanted criminals” looks like: a man photographed at Newark Liberty International Airport, and a government in Warsaw already drafting the paperwork.