Court orders arrest of former Orbán-era minister

An investigating judge at the Buda Central District Court has ordered the arrest of Miklós Seszták, the Budapest Metropolitan Court announced on Wednesday. The National Asset Recovery and Protection Office suspects the KDNP-delegated member of Parliament and former Minister of National Development of accepting bribes during his time in office.

MP Miklós Seszták was detained on Monday at the Central Investigative Prosecutor’s Office on the orders of the National Asset Recovery and Protection Office (NVVH). This was the first operation ordered by Hungary’s new anti-corruption office since it began operations on September 27.

The KDNP lawmaker and former minister of national development went to the Central Investigative Prosecutor’s Office building on his own Monday morning, reportedly to give a statement about the case involving him. While he was there, it turned out that the case in which he was implicated had been taken over by the NVVH, so he was questioned at the prosecutor’s office by Katalin Tasnády, the NVVH’s deputy chief of investigations (and a former prosecutor at the Central Investigative Prosecutor’s Office). During this time, Parliament voted to suspend Seszták’s immunity; so as soon as the resolution to that effect was published in the Hungarian Gazette, Tasnády detained the politician.

According to the prosecutor’s office, there are reasonable grounds to believe that between 2014 and 2018, while he was minister, Seszták accepted bribes totaling hundreds of millions and several billions of forints from construction contractors. The prosecutor’s office alleges that Seszták and Norbert Szivek, then-CEO of the Hungarian National Asset Management Agency, obtained 11 billion forints in unlawful benefits, but there are also other incriminating testimonies against Seszták. The KDNP politician insists he is innocent.

According to the allegations, between 2015 and 2018, when they purchased more than 600 used buses at inflated prices, Volánbusz companies sustained 10 billion forints in financial losses. The purchase of the Kecskemét headquarters of one of the Volán companies may also have been overpriced, resulting in a financial loss of at least 550 million forints for the company. Those who participated in the scheme laundered the funds obtained through the misappropriation by financing real estate projects, withdrawing more than one billion forints, and purchasing high-value cars. In other words, they redirected the funds derived from the overpriced bus purchases and the acquisition of the Kecskemét headquarters—through intermediary companies and using fictitious loan agreements—to companies in which they held an interest.

Anna Unger, head of the NVVH announced Monday morning that along with three other cases, the newly established anti-corruption office would take over the case of the Volánbusz acquisitions from the prosecutor’s office. With regard to the case involving Seszták, the NVVH stated, “This case illustrates how a politician can use his decision-making power over public funds and public property for personal enrichment, how free competition in the construction industry can be rendered impossible across an entire region, and how political power forces economic actors into complete economic subjugation in exchange for their livelihood.”

If the court later finds him guilty, Seszták could face up to 10 years in prison, which would mean the end of a political career that has spanned nearly the entire time since the fall of communism.