Prosecutors in Poland have submitted a request for a European Arrest Warrant against a former Polish justice minister who is facing multiple charges in his home country and has been granted asylum in Hungary where he is now living.
An attempt by Zbigniew Ziobro to tell the authorities of his exact whereabouts failed as the police helpline number issued was not working, as he demonstrated during a television interview.
The prosecution service controlled by the centre-left government led by Prime Minister Donald Tusk alleges that Ziobro, a leading figure in the last Conservative (PiS) government, committed 26 crimes relating to the misuse of public funds and abuse of power.
On February 6, Polish prosecutors issued a domestic arrest warrant and a Warsaw court ordered the pre-trial detention of Ziobro . Since October he has been living in Hungary where he has been granted asylum on the grounds that he was unlikely to face a fair trial in Poland.
In an interview with Brussels Signal earlier this week, Ziobro said he is being pursued by the Tusk government because as justice minister he was involved in initiating investigations against politicians from the current ruling party, including Tusk himself.
“The prosecutor’s office under my leadership conducted a number of procedural actions against fraud and giant bribes which involved Donald Tusk’s associates. There was even a case in which there were allegations that Tusk may have himself taken a bribe,” he said.
Ziobro stresses that he is not being accused of taking any money himself, therefore the accusations that he was a beneficiary of the public funding contained in the 26 charges he feels are “totally absurd”.
He is the second former PiS government official to be granted asylum in Hungary. The first was Marcin Romanowski, a PiS MP and former deputy justice minister, who was granted asylum in late 2023.
The Polish Government’s prosecution service filed a submission to a Warsaw court yesterday for the issuing of a European arrest warrant against Ziobro. If granted, that would effectively be valid across the European Union.
Since January of this year, though, Hungarian law does not allow the release of individuals to whom asylum has been granted.
In a statement, the prosecutor’s office said Ziobro was “most likely hiding in a European Union country to avoid criminal liability,” adding that “his current address is unknown”.
Ziobro denies that the authorities are unaware of his whereabouts and while interviewed for independent conservative broadcaster TV Republika, Ziobro he tried to call the police to tell them of his address but could not get through on the advertised helpline.
Zaskakujące wydarzenia na antenie Telewizji Republika. Zbigniew Ziobro próbował dodzwonić się do polskiej policji, ale linia była zajęta. #polityka #zbigniewziobro #listgonczy #wegry https://t.co/VVGDmomN79
— Fakt (@Fakt_pl) February 6, 2026
European arrest warrants are usually issued for those whose whereabouts are not known.
The charges being made by the prosecutors concentrate on Ziobro’s role in channelling public funds from the Justice Fund, a financial vehicle for helping victims of and prevention of crimes, towards right-wing organisations and areas in which his allies stood for parliament. He is also suspected of the purchase the controversial Israeli Pegasus spyware, later used to allegedly monitor the political rivals of PiS.
Investigators accuse Ziobro of establishing and leading an organised crime group in the ministry of justice that allegedly misused around €35 million from the Justice Fund.
Ziobro denies the charges against him and claims the investigation is politically motivated since the Tusk government has made pursuing former PiS officials for alleged offences a priority in order “to restore the rule of law”.
Since coming into office, the Tusk government has issued a raft of indictments against former PiS government officials, including one against the last PiS prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki.
In November, the Polish parliament voted to strip Ziobro of his parliamentary immunity, clearing the way for prosecutors to charge him formally and seek his detention.
Ziobro has been a target for the Tusk government as he was the minister who piloted the PiS’s overhaul of the judicial system the then liberal opposition and EU institutions alleged to have reduced the independence of judges.
“I haven’t seen a penny of that money,” he insists in the video interview, which will be available on Brussels Signal portal soon.
The reforms spearheaded by Ziobro led to a longstanding rule-of-law dispute with Brussels, leading to Poland being locked out of billions in EU funds.
Those funds were unblocked when Tusk arrived in government in 2023. His administration, though, has not been able to change legislation that would undo the PiS-era reforms.
In addition, conflicts over the status of judges has led to past court verdicts being challenged and the government refusing to recognise some courts whose composition changed during the lifetime of the PiS administration.
