A Polish judge fled to Belarus and asked for political asylum: “There is a very wise president here”

A Polish judge requested political asylum in Belarus, a country allied to Russia and in extremely tense relations with Poland, causing consternation among the authorities in Warsaw.

“Please forgive me for my audacity, but I allow myself to ask for the tutelage and protection of the president (ed. – Belarusian dictator, Aleksandr Lukashenko) and Belarus,” said judge Tomasz Szmydt at a press conference held in Minsk. “Here is a very wise president”, said the Polish judge, referring to Lukashenko.

In a message posted on social networks, Tomasz Szmydt stated that he is a judge in the Regional Administrative Court in Warsaw and that he decided to leave his native country because of a “political disagreement” with the new power in Warsaw represented by the coalition pro-EU led by Prime Minister Donald Tusk.

“I protest against the Polish authorities, who, under the influence of the USA and Great Britain, are leading the country to war. The Polish people want peace and good neighborly relations with Belarus and Russia”, he also explains his decision to leave his country, referring to the support that Poland offers to Ukraine in the war started by Russia.

In an interview given to the Russian agency Ria Novosti, the judge says that he was threatened in Poland with criminal actions in a “staged espionage affair”.

He is considered close to the reactionary-populist Law and Justice (PiS) party. This party, which ruled Poland for eight years in a row, went into opposition at the end of the year after losing its majority in the October elections. Since then, a political battle has been going on between the current and former power, whose main stakes are justice and the press, which the old power wanted silenced.

“Honestly, I am shocked”, reacted the Polish foreign minister, Radoslaw Sikorski, after learning about the situation. “We had a traitor in a similar case in the past,” he recalled, referring to a Polish soldier, Emil Czeczko, who in 2021 defected to Belarus, and in March 2022, according to Minsk authorities, was found dead.

The Warsaw Regional Administrative Court issued a statement stating that Judge Tomasz Szmydt did not inform his superiors of his intention to resign.

Editor: Adrian Dumitru

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