The Polish Prosecutor’s Office on Friday issued a domestic arrest warrant for former justice minister Zbigniew Ziobro, after a Warsaw district court on Thursday approved a request for Ziobro to be placed in pretrial detention. Ziobro faces up to 25 years in prison on 26 charges, including abuse of power and alleged crimes relating to the management of the Justice Fund, a state fund created to support victims of crime.
The government’s parliamentary majority lifted the immunity of the former PiS minister in November 2025. At the time, Ziobro had traveled to Hungary, where he then chose to remain and was granted international protection and political asylum in January of this year.
“Issuing an arrest warrant, circulating the image of a person presumed innocent, and triumphantly exploiting this fact by politicians of the current government confirm the validity of the thesis that Ziobro has no chance of a fair trial in Poland, and that granting him international protection was fully justified,” Ziobro’s defense attorney Bartosz Lewandowski commented.
Prosecutor Piotr Woźniak on Thursday told reporters, “The court fully agreed with the arguments set out in the motion, finding that there was a general statutory basis for applying preventive measures [of pretrial detention], namely a high probability that the suspect committed the alleged acts,” prosecutor told journalists on Thursday.
Lewandowski called the arrest warrant “a joke and a clear confirmation of the political involvement of the Prosecutor’s Office.”
❗️List gończy wydany przez @PK_GOV_PL wobec @ZiobroPL to żart i jednoznaczne potwierdzenie politycznego zaangażowania Prokuratury.
List gończy (279 KPK) wydaje się wtedy gdy podejrzany ukrywa się w Polsce, miejsce jego pobytu nie jest znane i ma służyć rozpowszechnieniu… https://t.co/5HaYPEB8P5
The prosecutor’s office said that the warrant was issued in order to carry out procedural actions involving Ziobro, because these actions “could not be completed” because of a “failure to establish the suspect’s place of residence.”
Not only is Ziobro a public figure, his defense attorney said, the government and the European Commission “have been informed” that he is staying outside Poland. “The Prosecutor’s Office even has his address,” he said on X.
Ziobro himself, appearing on Polish Republika TV from Hungary, said
This is the reality of the Żurkowo-Tusko justice system. It’s actually a comedy. Polish regulations clearly state that an arrest warrant applies only within Poland. There’s also a second condition: when the whereabouts of the wanted person are unknown. Everyone in Poland knows I’m not in Poland, so this condition is eliminated. And even more so, my whereabouts are known.
The former justice minister then—on the air—tried calling the number listed on the arrest warrant but received a recorded message saying “the line is currently busy.”
Ziobro has consistently said the Donald Tusk-led government has weaponized the legal system against him and that he will only return when the rule of law is restored.
Interior Minister Marcin Kierwiński called the court’s decision “a symbol of the fight against evil, political corruption, and the pathology of power” and said the ruling opens the way for an Interpol red notice to be issued for Ziobro. The prosecutor said the request for a European Arrest Warrant will be submitted to the district court early next week.
Ziobro’s defense team said they would file an appeal against the court’s decision and, in the meantime, apply for suspension of the enforcement of the decision.
Hungary has previously granted asylum to one of Ziobro’s former deputy ministers, Marcin Romanowski, who is likewise facing criminal charges in Poland. In Romanowski’s case, Interpol refused to issue a Red Notice, and Judicial Watch initiated proceedings pointing to political persecution.
“The completely absurd charges brought against Ziobro almost entirely overlap with those that Tusk’s prosecution directed against me,” Romanowski wrote in a commentary for europeanconservative.com, saying the charges “were formulated as a result of the criminal falsification of evidence by individuals subordinate to Tusk.”
