The Polish authorities have formally requested the detention and extradition of former Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro from the United States, who is being investigated in his country for 26 possible crimes, including the alleged embezzlement of 40 million dollars (about 35.1 million euros).
"Important. Today a request for temporary detention and extradition of Zbigniew Ziobro has been submitted to the authorities of the United States," said the spokesperson for the Government of Poland, Adam Szlapka, in a message disseminated on social media.
Polish Justice is demanding Ziobro for 26 alleged crimes, which include the presumed membership in a criminal organization and the diversion of public funds.
During the course of the investigations, the former minister left Poland and took refuge in Hungary with his former deputy prime minister, Marcin Romanowski, where both obtained political asylum granted by then Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.
In May, Ziobro made it public that he had left Hungary and was in the United States, following the political shift in Budapest and a few days before the inauguration of the new government of Péter Magyar, which had already indicated that it would stop offering protection to the former leader.
Written by the Polish Prosecutor's Office
In an official note, the Polish Prosecutor's Office has confirmed that the competent authorities of the United States of America have received, through diplomatic channels, the request for detention and extradition against Ziobro. The document details the alleged irregularities and the harm caused to the public interest by the actions of the former minister, and it is noted that cooperation on extradition matters between Poland and the United States is based on a treaty signed in 1996.
"The extradition request covers 19 of the 26 acts described in the indictment resolution. This scope was determined taking into account the position of the District Court of Warsaw," explained the Prosecutor's Office, which recalls that the Court of Appeals concluded that, regarding seven of the facts, "the evidence gathered did not indicate a high probability of their commission and, therefore, were not included in the extradition request."
"These charges refer to the failure to comply with the obligations related to the supervision of the management of the funds of the Justice Fund, by allowing Marcin Romanowski to make decisions on the granting of specific grants from the Fund, despite the fact that at that time he did not have the authority to exercise the functions of administrator," added the Public Prosecutor's Office.
In any case, the Polish authorities emphasize that limiting the extradition request to 19 crimes "does not affect the scope of the ongoing investigation, which continues to encompass all the crimes described in the indictment resolution."
According to the Prosecutor's Office, the evidence gathered so far "allowed for the establishment of a sufficiently justified suspicion" that Ziobro, currently a deputy of the Sejm, "could have committed the crimes" attributed to him.