Polish judge who fled to Minsk wants to apply for Belarusian citizenship
Tomasz Szmydt, a former Polish judge, who fled to Belarus, said that he wants to apply for Belarusian citizenship but also to retain his Polish citizenship, the Russian news agency TASS reported on Friday.
Szmydt is currently facing espionage charges in Poland and is wanted by the Polish prosecutors.
According to a quote provided by TASS, Szmydt said that "if the law allows it, he wants to be both a citizen of Poland and Belarus."
He also said that "in the near future he intends to file a request for asylum," but for now, he has only consulted with the Belarusian lawyers on "general issues" concerning his case.
The Belarusian propaganda agency Belta also published photos of Szmydt on Friday dropping a parcel into a mailbox belonging to the Polish embassy in Minsk.
Szmydt said it was a statement addressed to the Polish Ministry of Justice and the prosecutor general, as well as a letter to the human rights ombudsman "in connection with the fact that the Polish government has violated Polish law and the constitution."
"I wanted to hand the statement to the consul myself," Belta cited Szmydt, "but it turned out that the consul cannot receive these documents or speak to me."
Pawel Wronski, the spokesperson of the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, addressed this statement through a post on the X platform.
"...in the early morning hours, Tomasz Szmydt tried to coerce the representative of Polish diplomacy in front of the Polish embassy in Minsk, accompanied by Belarussian regime reporters," he wrote on Friday. "Our representative did not respond to his provocations."
According to Szmydt, his "only fault" was the fact that he resigned from his post as a judge, as well as "talking to the press."
"These were Belarussian and Russian media outlets. In the view of the Polish government, that amounts to espionage. These are the charges that have been leveled against me," he said. "And where is democracy in all of this? Where is freedom of speech?"
He added: "I intend to fight for my rights both on the national and international level."
The case became public when the judge appeared at a propaganda press conference in Minsk, Belarus, on 6 May. The Belarusian state news agency Belta reported that he had asked the Belarusian authorities for "care and protection". The judge, meanwhile, said that he was relinquishing his previous position at the Provincial Administrative Court in Warsaw (WSA) "with immediate effect". He also posted a statement about this on social media.
mj/jch
