Tusk Government Hunts Ex-Minister Ziobro After He Flees to U.S.
Polish prosecutors are preparing an extradition request for former conservative justice minister Zbigniew Ziobro, who fled to New York on a journalist visa.
Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk and Hungary’s Prime Minister Péter Magyar hold hands during a rally in Gdansk on May 20, 2026.
SERGEI GAPON / AFP
Polish prosecutors are preparing an extradition request for former conservative justice minister Zbigniew Ziobro, who fled to New York on a journalist visa.
Donald Tusk’s left-liberal government in Poland is intensifying its efforts to bring a former conservative minister to justice in what is seen as the weaponisation of the law against the right-wing opposition.
Polish prosecutors said on Wednesday, May 20th, that fugitive former justice minister Zbigniew Ziobro fled Europe for the United States earlier this month on a flight departing from Milan.
According to prosecutors, Ziobro left Europe on May 9th and travelled to New York on a journalist visa after securing a role as a correspondent for right-wing broadcaster TV Republika.
Prosecutors are also investigating whether anyone helped Ziobro avoid criminal responsibility, including the station’s editor-in-chief, Tomasz Sakiewicz, who was questioned as a witness on Wednesday.
The latest developments came after Reuters reported that U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau had personally instructed officials to facilitate Ziobro’s visa application, enabling him to travel from Hungary to the United States.
Prime Minister Donald Tusk described the decision as “outrageous,” while Justice Minister Waldemar Żurek said Warsaw was preparing an extradition request.
Ziobro and former deputy justice minister Marcin Romanowski had both sought refuge in Hungary after the Polish authorities launched legal proceedings against them. Under the government of Viktor Orbán, Budapest granted the pair international protection, arguing that there were concerns over whether they could receive fair treatment under Poland’s current administration.
The recent change in government in Hungary, however, forced the two Polish politicians to leave the country. Romanowski’s whereabouts are currently unknown.
Meanwhile, Ziobro insists he is the victim of a politically motivated campaign by Tusk’s pro-Brussels government. He has said he would voluntarily return to Poland to face justice only “when the rule of law is restored.”
In a post published on X earlier this week, the former minister said any extradition proceedings in the United States would give the international public an opportunity to see “the scale of law-breaking in Poland” and the alleged political abuse of prosecutors and courts.
W interesie Polaków jest, aby światowa opinia publiczna poznała prawdę o skali łamania prawa w Polsce oraz o wykorzystywaniu prokuratury i sądów do walki politycznej i represji. Sprawa przed niezależnym i niezawisłym amerykańskim sędzią będzie do tego znakomitą okazją.
The former justice minister, one of the leading figures of the conservative Law and Justice (PiS) government that ruled Poland between 2015 and 2023, faces 26 charges linked mainly to the alleged misuse of funds intended for crime victims.
The case forms part of a broader campaign against the conservative opposition since Tusk returned to power.
PiS MP Dariusz Matecki described the charges as “political revenge” against one of Poland’s strongest conservative voices, noting that Ziobro had previously led efforts against organised crime, VAT fraud, and corruption.
Zbigniew Ziobro was the man who dismantled massive VAT fraud networks and fuel mafias that had stolen billions from the Polish state. As Minister of Justice and Prosecutor General, he also launched investigations into people connected to Donald Tusk’s political circle. Today,…
Last year, Republican members of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee expressed concern that Poland’s government was “weaponising the justice system” against political opponents and conservative media outlets.
Despite the severe rule-of-law violations committed by the Tusk government, including the arrests of ex-ministers, the lifting of MPs’ immunity, and the seizure of public media and the prosecutor’s office, EU institutions have remained silent—the same EU institutions that had willingly berated the previous conservative Polish government and deprived it of EU funds.
Zoltán Kottász is a journalist for europeanconservative.com, based in Budapest. He worked for many years as a journalist and as the editor of the foreign desk at the Hungarian daily, Magyar Nemzet. He focuses primarily on European politics.
