The trick of the former Polish Minister of Justice to flee to the United States

Shock in the Polish press: the tabloid Fakt, like many media outlets in the country, has chosen to dedicate its front page on May 11th to the escape of former Minister of Justice Zbigniew Ziobro across the Atlantic. He had confirmed the day before that he was in the United States.

“Ziobro fled to the USA,” reads the headline in the daily, which notes that the former minister is no longer in Hungary, where he had been granted asylum under Viktor Orban’s regime in January 2026. “He allegedly used a trick to escape and left as a journalist with a visa,” writes Fakt, relying on information from the online media outlet Onet.

In Hungary, the climate has changed. The highly controversial Zbigniew Ziobro is being pursued by Polish justice for “leading an organized criminal group and abusing his position for criminal purposes” during his time in charge of Justice between 2015 and 2023, in a Poland governed by the populist nationalists of PiS (Law and Justice). He is accused of rigging tenders that benefited conservative foundations, with the help of his former deputy minister, Marcin Romanowski, who is also under investigation.

The climate in Hungary has also changed for the two fugitives, who were enjoying peaceful days on the Danube – Marcin Romanowski had been under Hungary’s protection since December 2024. The new center-right Prime Minister Peter Magyar, seeking to break away from Orban’s era, had made it clear during his campaign that he would do everything to “extradite [the two accused] on the first day of the new government,” as noted by Fakt.

This led to Zbigniew Ziobro’s hasty departure, captured by an informant from the private TV station TVN24 at Newark Airport, New Jersey, on May 9th, the day Peter Magyar was sworn in as Prime Minister in Hungary. Ziobro no longer had his Polish passport and could not enter the United States with his refugee passport. The very conservative news channel Republika (close to PiS) reportedly helped the fugitive obtain a visa allowing him to enter the United States, according to Fakt, citing Onet.