Hungary grants asylum to former Polish Minister facing criminal charges – Firstpost

Hungary has granted asylum to a former Justice Minister of Poland Zbigniew Ziobro,who was facing criminal charges including misappropriating funds meant for crime victims to illegally purchase Israeli spyware.  

Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto confirmed Budapest had granted “asylum or refugee status to individuals suffering political persecution in Poland”, without naming the individuals concerned.

Poland has sought to prosecute former Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro, architect of changes to the judicial system that the EU had long reported undermined the rule of law when the nationalist Law and Justice party (PiS) led Poland.

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Ziobro served from 2015 to 2023 in the government of the populist-nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party, a close ally of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

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“I decided to take advantage of the asylum granted to me by the Hungarian government due to political repressions in Poland,” Ziobro wrote on X on Monday. He said he had also requested asylum for his wife.

“The former Minister of Justice fleeing like a coward from the Polish justice system. A total downfall!” Tomasz Siemoniak, the cabinet minister in charge of Poland’s security services, wrote on X.

In a press conference, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto confirmed that Budapest had approved “some” asylum requests from Poland, again without identifying Ziobro.

“In Poland… many people are subject to political persecution,” he reported.

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Ziobro faces up to 25 years in prison on 26 charges, including abuse of power, leading an organised criminal enterprise and using funds meant for crime victims to buy Israeli Pegasus spyware, allegedly to monitor political opponents.

“I decided to take advantage of the asylum granted to me by the Hungarian government due to political repression in Poland,” Ziobro remarked in a lengthy post on X on Monday.

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Polish deputy defence minister Cezary Tomczyk responded by saying: “Ziobro will not go unpunished."

“No politician is above the law,” he told broadcaster Polsat.

Ziobro is considered the architect of a series of contentious judicial reforms that sparked a standoff between Poland and the European Union.

He rejects the charges against him and has accused Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s centrist government of organising a witch hunt against the conservative opposition.

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