Ministries subordinate to Prime Minister Donald Tusk have invalidated the passports of Marcin Romanowski, who is currently in Hungary, and Zbigniew Ziobro may be next. Both Law and Justice (PiS) politicians reject the charges brought by the prosecutor’s office overseen by Waldemar Żurek and describe the case as political revenge.
Romanowski Already Without a Passport
Marcin Romanowski, former deputy justice minister, has had his diplomatic and service passports invalidated. He received the notification through the mObywatel system. The PiS MP says he will fight for his good name and denies all allegations related to irregularities in managing the Justice Fund.
This information was confirmed to Rzeczpospolita by prosecutor Przemysław Nowak, spokesperson for the National Prosecutor’s Office.
“The reason for invalidating the passport was a request submitted by the prosecutor leading the investigation under Article 70(2)(11) of the Passport Documents Act (…). It was necessary to secure the continuation of the proceedings, particularly by preventing or hindering further escape by the suspect, Marcin Romanowski, using this document, including preventing him from leaving the Schengen area,” he added.
The decision to invalidate the passports was made by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of the Interior and Administration — led respectively by Radosław Sikorski and Marcin Kierwiński.
Romanowski stresses that he obtained international protection in Hungary in accordance with the law, because he cannot count on a fair trial in Poland. After his passports were invalidated, he applied for a Geneva Travel Document.
Is Ziobro Next?
Zbigniew Ziobro, former justice minister and prosecutor general, has from the start consistently rejected the allegations of irregularities in managing the Justice Fund. He has repeatedly emphasized that the Fund was transparent and that all expenditures were legal and supervised by the relevant institutions.
Now, like Romanowski, Ziobro is being pursued by the prosecutor’s office, which has already filed a motion with the court for his pretrial detention. The former justice minister and PiS MP will not be questioned in either Hungary or Brussels, because the prosecutor rejected his proposal to do so.
Meanwhile, security services are checking, among other things, flights arriving from Brussels, where Ziobro has one of his correspondence addresses. Passengers arriving from the Belgian capital may be stopped for ID checks by police officers directly in the jet bridge at Warsaw Chopin Airport.