The former justice minister with Poland’s pervious Conservative (PiS) government has become the second senior Polish politician granted asylum by Hungary.
That came after the ex-minister, Zbigniew Ziobro, was was indicted for alleged abuse of power by the present centre-left government led by Prime Minister Donald Tusk.
Ziobro’s deputy at the ministry, Marcin Romanowski, was granted asylum by Hungary following a similar indictment in late 2024. That led the Tusk government to recall Poland’s ambassador to Budapest.
Ziobro is alleged by prosecutors 0f having committed 26 offences while in office. The allegations included the establishment of an “organised criminal group”, which is purported to have misused €35 million from the Justice Fund, a State vehicle designed to help victims of crime.
According to the prosecutors’ allegations, the funds were instead channelled into projects linked to Ziobro’s political allies and used to purchase the controversial Israeli Pegasus spyware, which was allegedly later used to monitor PiS’ political rivals.
Ziobro denies the charges, claiming that all legal procedures with regard to the fund were adhered to and that the purchase of the Pegasus spyware was necessary and resulted in indictments against politicians close to Tusk.
In November 2025, the Polish parliament’s pro-Tusk majority voted to strip Ziobro of his parliamentary immunity, clearing the way for prosecutors to formally charge him and seek his detention. By this time he had already left the country for Hungary.
News about Ziobro being granted political asylum was given by his attorney Bartosz Lewandowski on today in a post on X. The lawyer stated that his client was granted asylum because of actions by Polish prosecutors and security services that, he claimed, amounted to “politically motivated repression”.
Ziobro himself thanked Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán for the protection.
“I have decided to remain abroad until genuine guarantees of the rule of law are restored in Poland,” he wrote on X.
In his social media post, Ziobro framed his decision as an act of resistance against what he described as growing authoritarianism in Poland. He said he intended to continue his political struggle from abroad against what he sees as an erosion of the rule of law in his country.
The ex-minister claimed he was being targeted in a “manhunt and smear campaign”, adding that he had gone abroad to oppose what he called “political banditry and lawlessness” and a “creeping dictatorship” under Tusk’s government.
Ziobro further alleged that the Tusk administration was employing repressive tactics against political opponents as well as independent judges whose rulings do not align with the government’s political priorities.
The former minister, who is recovering from cancer of the oesophagus, accused prosecutors and the leadership of the justice ministry of pursuing political revenge against him for investigations into alleged corruption he initiated while in office. He also claimed that his wife Patrycja Kotecka had become a target of political attacks and so he had sought Hungary’s protection for her, too.
Kotecka is a former executive in Polish television and later in the publicly-owned State insurance company PZU. She is currently residing in Brussels while working in the European Parliament.
Ziobro indicated that a return home would only be possible if meaningful legal and democratic safeguards are restored.
His case closely resembles that brought by the Tusk government against his deputy Romanowski who was granted asylum by the Orbán government after claims of political persecution.
Orbán, who met Ziobro in Budapest last October, has accused the Tusk administration of launching a “political witch hunt” against the former minister and other PiS politicians.
The Hungarian PM and the former PiS government were allies on many issues within the European Union in past years. They disagreed, though, over the war in Ukraine and their parties are in two separate European Parliamentary groupings: Fidesz is in the European Patriots caucus whereas PiS is in the European Conservative Reformers group.
Ziobro’s and Romanowski’s bids for asylum in Hungary have not gone down well with parts of right-wing public opinion in Poland. They feel that the two have given Tusk and his party ammunition to claim they have fled because they are afraid of having to pay for their sins.
Former PiS prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki is indicted by the Tusk government for alleged abuse of power over an aborted attempt to conduct a postal ballot for the presidency during the pandemic in 2020. He told reporters that although he understood that the prosecution was acting politically he himself would not be seeking political asylum, preferring to “face the music” at home and argue his case.
The PiS-aligned President Karol Nawrocki has also gone on the record as saying that, although he “understood” Ziobro’ s reasoning, he “would not have left the country”.
