WARSAW, Jan 12, 2026 (BSS/AFP) - A Polish ex-justice minister, who faces criminal charges including misappropriating funds meant for crime victims to illegally purchase Israeli spyware, said on Monday he had received "asylum" in Hungary.

Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto confirmed Budapest had granted "asylum or refugee status to individuals suffering political persecution in Poland", without naming the individuals concerned.

Polish conservative former justice minister Zbigniew Ziobro served from 2015 to 2023 in the government of the populist-nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party, a close ally of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

He faces up to 25 years in prison on 26 charges, including abuse of power, leading an organised criminal enterprise and using funds meant for crime victims to buy Israeli Pegasus spyware, allegedly to monitoring political opponents.

"I decided to take advantage of the asylum granted to me by the Hungarian government due to political repression in Poland," Ziobro said in a lengthy post on X on Monday.

Polish deputy defence minister Cezary Tomczyk responded by saying: "Ziobro will not go unpunished."

"No politician is above the law," he told broadcaster Polsat.

In November, the Polish parliament lifted Ziobro's immunity, and consented to his detention and arrest.

Ziobro is considered the architect of a series of contentious judicial reforms that sparked a standoff between Poland and the European Union.

He rejects the charges against him and has accused Prime Minister Donald Tusk's centrist government of organising a witch hunt against the conservative opposition.

A Ziobro aide in the former government, Marcin Romanowski, obtained political asylum from the Hungarian government after facing similar charges.

Romanowski continues to reside in Hungary, despite a European arrest warrant issued by Poland and unprecedented diplomatic tension between the two EU countries.