A member of the previous PiS authorities wished by Poland with a European arrest warrant has… Hungary acquired political asylum. The Hungarian authorities had granted safety to the previous deputy justice minister Marcin Romanowski, his lawyer Bartosz Lewandowski stated on X. The head of the workplace of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban confirmed the data, as reported by the PAP information company.
The authorities in Warsaw reacted angrily. Consider the granting of Asylum Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski wrote on X that Romanowski was suspected of getting dedicated crimes as a “hostile act against Poland and the principles of the EU.”
Suspicion of embezzlement from funds for crime victims
The Polish public prosecutor’s workplace is investigating 48-year-old Romanowski for eleven legal offenses, together with suspicion of membership in a legal group and corruption. On Thursday, a court docket granted the investigators’ request that the politician with a European Arrest warrant to go looking.
As deputy justice minister, he’s stated to have funneled thousands and thousands of {dollars} from a fund for crime victims into tasks that the then justice minister, Zbigniew Ziobro, hoped would profit the celebration. Romanowski denies all allegations.
In one case, the equal of 23.5 million euros is alleged to have flowed to the muse of a Catholic priest who made a reputation for himself as an exorcist. The funds have been meant to construct a home that will ostensibly present shelter for crime victims. According to media reviews, the priest is alleged to have arrange a number of recording studios there as a result of he deliberate to construct a media empire primarily based on the mannequin of the right-wing Catholic broadcaster Radio Maryja.
The PiS authorities had massively restructured the Polish judiciary
The national-conservative PiS celebration dominated Poland from 2015 to 2023. During this time, it considerably restructured the justice system, which earned it accusations of violating the rule of regulation from the EU Commission. In October 2023 the misplaced PiS the parliamentary elections and has since grow to be the nation’s largest opposition celebration.
Since then, Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s center-left coalition has been making an attempt to reverse the PiS authorities’s controversial judicial reforms.
Former minister argues he can not anticipate a good trial
According to Romanowski’s lawyer, the politician argued in his asylum software that the Polish prosecutor’s investigation towards him was politically motivated. He might additionally Poland don’t anticipate a good trial.
The Hungarian authorities permitted the applying as a result of “the rights and freedoms” of the previous deputy minister have been restricted in his dwelling nation.
Hungarian Prime Minister Orban’s head of cupboard, Gergely Gulyas, informed the newspaper Mandarin, for Romanowski in his dwelling nation the hazard of an unfair and politically influenced trial. “This risk exists today in Poland in general and especially in this case,” Gulyas continued.
Gulyas was referring to Romanowski’s arrest, which was later dominated unlawful by Polish courts as a result of he loved parliamentary immunity as a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. After the group lifted his immunity, Romanowski disappeared eleven days in the past. His lawyer confirmed to X that Romanowski had requested for asylum in Hungary.
Hungary additionally helped out former Brazilian President Bolsonaro
It shouldn’t be the primary time that Hungary has given refuge from prosecution to a political ally of Orban. In 2018, the nation granted asylum to the previous head of the North Macedonian authorities, Nikola Gruevski, after he was sentenced to 2 years in jail for abuse of workplace.
When Brazilian police confiscated ex-President Jair Bolsonaro’s passport and arrested two of his advisers this 12 months, the previous head of state went to the Hungarian embassy in Brasilia and stayed there for 2 days. Investigators had beforehand expressed their suspicion that Bolsonaro had instigated an “attempted coup” to forestall his opponent from taking energy within the 2022 presidential election, now incumbent President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
https://www.zeit.de/politik/ausland/2024-12/polen-ungarn-haftbefehl-korruptionsverdacht-asyl-victor-orban