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Baluarte
07-08-2013, 02:09 PM
Former minister becomes first in modern Hungary sentenced to jail as court rules in highly-politicized secret service case
http://www.politics.hu/20130706/former-minister-becomes-first-in-modern-hungary-sentenced-to-jail-as-court-rules-in-highly-politicized-secret-service-case/

A court in Debrecen in eastern Hungary sentenced in a non-final ruling on Friday former minister in charge of the secret services Gyorgy Szilvasy and former director of the National Security Office Lajos Galambos to two years and ten months in prison for espionage.

Sandor Laborc, also a former director of the National Security Office, received a one-year prison sentence suspended for two years for espionage and complicity.

Businessman Laszlo P, the owner of a security company with Russian links, was cleared of the charges of subversive activities.

News portal Index said in July 2011, without revealing its source of information, that the charge of spying against Szilvasy, Galambos and Laborc was based a series of hacks against the government’s central computer system and the IT systems of government agencies while they were leaders of the secret services.

Galambos, who was head of the National Security Office between 2004 and 2007, was arrested on suspected espionage activities on June 28, 2011 and later Szilvasy was questioned. Laborc, Galambos’s successor in 2007-2009, was arrested and questioned on the charge of complicity.

The trial was held in full secrecy and the files of the case have been classified until 2040 because, as the prosecution put it, “several state secrets have emerged during the lawsuit”.

All the defendants have appealed against the sentence.

Szilvasy told MTI that he had been sentenced without any evidence brought up during the trial.

“I have not committed anything, I served my country,” Galambos said.

Laborc’s defence lawyer, Peter Zamecsnik, argued that the charges against his client did not fall into the category of a crime.

Index said that a hooded man taken to military prosecutor’s office together with Szilvasy at that time was a hacker involved in the UD Zrt affair.

The UD case dates back to September 2008 when investigation was launched into the company, whose staff consisted mainly of former police and national security officers, for alleged spying on politicians.

The opposition Socialists said they believed in Szilvasy’s innocence. As long as the files of the case are classified, the Socialist consider the lawsuit against Szilvasy to be based on trumped-up charges, Socialist leader Attila Mesterhazy said.

Ex-premier Ferenc Gyurcsany, leader of the leftist Democratic Coalition, expressed solidarity with Szilvasy.

Gyurcsany called it characteristic of the “absurd world of the Orban government” that, for the first time since the 1950s, a former minister has been sentenced to a term in prison.

Commenting the sentence, a Fidesz spokesman said that “a key figure of the mafia left wing could be put behind bars”. Mate Kocsis called Szilvasy a close associate of Gyurcsany, ex-premier Gordon Bajnai and Mesterhazy, whom he co-blamed for “destroying the country both economically and morally”. It is therefore no surprise that they have expressed solidarity with him, he said.

The opposition E14-PM electoral alliance called for the files of the case to be made public.

If the former political and professional chiefs of national security are accused of, and sentenced for, espionage, all Hungarian citizens have the right to get to know the exact charge, the evidence and the reasons for the judgement, E14-PM said in a statement.

Szegedist
07-08-2013, 10:44 PM
Good, they should throw more of these scum into jail, especially the "big fish".