FILE PHOTO: Polish Minister of Justice Zbigniew Ziobro attends press conference amid coalition tension in Warsaw, Poland September 21, 2020. Adam Stepien/Agencja Gazeta via REUTERS/ File Photo
WARSAW (Reuters) -The Polish lower house of parliament voted on Friday to strip a former justice minister of immunity, which opens the way for him to be arrested and charged with numerous crimes, including abuse of power and heading an organised criminal group.
Zbigniew Ziobro, who was justice minister from 2015-2023 in the nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) government, did not attend the vote on his immunity, opting to remain abroad as he says he would not be treated fairly if he returned to Poland.
Prime Minister Donald Tusk's pro-EU government is pushing for an investigation of what it says was wrongdoing under the previous PiS administration.
Ziobro, the architect of court reforms that unleashed years of conflict with the European Union over judicial independence, is the highest-profile PiS government figure whom prosecutors have attempted to press charges against.
They want to charge him with 26 crimes, including misuse of money from the Justice Fund, which is designed to help victims of crime, to purchase the Pegasus spyware system.
Ziobro says the allegations against him are part of a witch hunt orchestrated by the government in revenge for actions he took targeting suspected corruption among people close to Tusk.
Several of Ziobro's deputies have already faced investigations. One of them, Marcin Romanowski, fled to Hungary where he was granted political asylum.
Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban, a nationalist who had close ties to the former PiS administration, met Ziobro last month in Budapest and accused the current Tusk government of launching a "political witch hunt" against Ziobro.
Polish media have reported that Ziobro is still in Budapest. Reuters has not been able to independently confirm his location.
Polish prosecutors, asked before the vote about their plans if Ziobro's immunity is lifted, declined to answer, saying they would issue a statement once decisions are reached.
(Reporting by Barbara Erling and Anna Wlodarczak-Semczuk; Editing by Gareth Jones)
