Hungary will drop investigation into leaked bribery cases that sparked protests

BUDAPEST (Reuters) – Hungarian prosecutors have ended their investigation into a former government informant who accused a cabinet member’s associates of interfering in a bribery investigation, saying they found no evidence of a crime on Thursday.

The accusations were made in March by Peter Magyar, who has since become the leader of Hungary’s largest opposition party, posing a rare challenge to Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s 14-year rule.

Magyar, whose new party received almost 30% of the vote in this month’s European Parliament elections, in a Facebook post called prosecutors’ press conference on Thursday “surreal” and said what they said was “partly a lie.”

The original case concerns former Secretary of State at the Ministry of Justice Pal Volner, who in 2022 was charged with accepting bribes from the former head of the court bailiff, Gyorgy Schadel. Both pleaded not guilty. Prosecutors are demanding a prison sentence for the couple.

In March, Magyar published a recording of a conversation with Judita Varga, then his wife and Hungary’s Minister of Justice. In the recording, Varga described in detail an alleged attempt by advisers to Orban’s cabinet chief to change documents in this case.

Thousands of people took to the streets to protest after the video was published.

“To manipulate the huge amount of investigation documents would require such a high level of coordination that would be impossible even with the help of insiders,” Chief Prosecutor Furcht said at a press conference.

Magyar said prosecutors “intentionally misread” his ex-wife’s words in the recording.

A spokeswoman for the prosecutor’s office said she did not want to comment on Magyar’s statements.

The investigation into Magyar’s allegations began in March at a politically sensitive moment for Orbán, just over a month after the sexual abuse scandal that toppled his two key political allies, the former president and Varga.

Orban’s Fidesz won the elections, but its support was eroded by the economic downturn and scandals.