July 20th, 2012

Former Hungarian PM Gyurcsány vindicated as prosecutors drop investigation into alleged abuse of office

By

The Central Prosecutor’s Office announced on Friday that it has dropped a long-running investigation into allegations of abuse of office against former Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány due to a lack of evidence.

The investigation centered on a land-swap deal involving a proposed casino and resort complex that was to have been built near the central Hungarian town of Sukoró. Prosecutors had said the allegedly illegal land deal had resulted in losses to the state in excess of HUF 1 billion.

Five other officials have been charged in the case widely known as the “Sukoró affair,” including the former head of the country’s national asset manager.

Abuse of public office is punishable by a maximum of three years in prison under Hungarian law.

The legal case against Gyurcsány was launched when a lawsuit was filed against the recently-departed PM by András Schiffer, who was then the head of a human rights group and is now the parliamentary leader of smaller opposition group LMP.

The former PM claimed his case was politically motivated, and that he would be “infinitely surprised” if the prosecutor’s office was able to produce any evidence supporting the allegations, a prediction that was borne out by events.

Vowing his innocence, Gyurcsány requested that his Parliamentary immunity be lifted, a request that was fulfilled last September.

That same month, current Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said in a speech that “the era of malfeasance, dishonesty, fraud and plunder in Hungary is over.”

Follow Politics.hu on twitter at @politicshu.
Topics
Share
  • Cnut

    Gyurcsány behaved very honourable throughout this whole affair, as did the co-accused.

    I’m not saying he always has done so in the past or ever will in the future, but in this case he did.

    I hope Schiffer, the jealous little turd, apologises.

  • Daddy Jar

    It’s just a pity to see that after the Gyurcsány era, we now get an era of malfeasance, dishonesty, fraud and plunder in Hungary.

  • Ma Jar

    Plunder – blunder!

  • Leto. مؤدّب

    The investigation was dropped “due to a lack of evidence”, that is it wasn’t established Gyurcsány is innocent. (That’s “due to not committing a crime” in Hungarian legal parlance).

    Gyurcsány will have to testify in court in the trial of those officials and then he won’t have the benefit of “not obliged to say things which could be used against the defendents”… This means, given a good and non-biased judge, he’ll be in trouble again.

    • Leto. مؤدّب

      In other words a witness has to tell the truth in court (or he will be punished), a defendant doesn’t have to.

    • Pete H.

      You really do have an Orwellian worldview.

      So since there is no evidence I stole a million dollars from my employee it doesn’t mean that I didn’t take it.

      Does the Hungarian justice system apply the concept of “innocent until proven guilty” or “guilty until proven innocent” as Leto suggests.

      The facts

      “The Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms of the Council of Europe says (art. 6.2): “Everyone charged with a criminal offence shall be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law”. This convention has been adopted by treaty and is binding on all Council of Europe members. Currently (and in any foreseeable expansion of the EU) every country member of the European Union is also member to the Council of Europe, so this stands for EU members as a matter of course. Nevertheless, this assertion is iterated verbatim in Article 48 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.”

      So Leto is applying a barbaric legal concept that is not recognized by Hungarian law.

      • Leto. مؤدّب

        You’re such a truly idiot indeed. That principle applies regardless, no matter what the public prosecutors decide. It’s the court which sentences or acquits someones. A legally binding (no appeals, etc.) sentence is what decides “guilt” or “innocence” in the sense of that Convention.

        • Pete H.

          The convention says nothing about sentencing determining guilt or innocence. The assumption applies to those charged whether they stand trial or not. So at this point the assumption legally is that he is innocent.

          • Leto. مؤدّب

            In the legal sense (what the Convention talks about) that killer, who admitted killing that girl in Pécs and there’s rock solid DNS evidence against, is innocent until the court sentences him in a legally binding way.

    • Anonymous

      The fact that there was not enough evidence to bring a prosecution, let alone win one, suggests he is likely innocent.

      Should we nickname you “Sour Grapes Leto”?

      • Leto. مؤدّب

        No, “due to a lack of evidence” doesn’t suggests he’d be likely innocent. That’s “due to not committing a crime”.

        PS: You can nickname me whatever you feel like because I don’t give a damn.

    • spectator

      “The investigation was dropped “due to a lack of evidence”, that is it wasn’t established Gyurcsány is innocent. (That’s “due to not committing a crime” in Hungarian legal parlance).”

      - While Leto certainly has a point here explaining the legal parlance, I’d like to remind that the investigation never intended to establish innocence, it was initiated because of the delation from Mr Schiffer.

      Conclusively, the goal of the investigation was to prove, whether or not Mr.Schiffer’s accusations are correct, whether or not Mr.Gyurcsany committed misconduct in- and around the Sukoró affair.

      As it turned out, the Prosecutor hasn’t find evidence of criminal activity as it was described by Mr.Schiffer – hence the announcement.

      Something for sure, though, that they certainly did their best to turn up something, not to disappoint the PM, but life is tough and hey, “You can’t always get what you want”

      • Leto. مؤدّب

        “I’d like to remind that the investigation never intended to establish innocence”

        “Innocence” or “guilt” is established, in a legal sense, by the court, of course.
        When the public prosecutors decide not to charge someone in court then they decide if they (that is the prosecutors) think the person in question didn’t commit a crime (“due to not committing a crime”) or if they think the person did commit the crime but they think the evidence they gathered would not be sufficient to convince the court (“due to a lack of evidence”).

        I’m baffled why people cannot understand such a simple thing.

        • spectator

          Leto, I have no problems with your reasoning and I understand the distinctions without problem – I simply point to the fact, that this investigation aimed to verify, that Mr.Schiffer’s accusations are valid or not.
          Since they have not found supporting evidence of those accusations, neither enough evidence of crime, they dropped the case.
          While everyone is free to think whatever they please, authorities normally don’t act upon assumptions – so far, that is – as a matter of fact the above quoted “shall be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law” is valid as I see it.
          My conclusion is that at the moment your interpretation of the case nothing more than a manifestation of wishful thinking. Wait and see, when he really convicted for a crime what he really committed, useless trying to stick to heresy and repeat like a mantra.

          If you really trust in the present legal system and Mr.Orban’s honest intentions regarding law and justice, you have no reason to be doubtful about the fate of Mr.Gyurcsány, haven’t you?

          • Leto. مؤدّب

            My point was that ““shall be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law” is valid regardless of what the prosecutors decide. I’m not “interpreting the case”, I pointed out what those terms mean as far as the investigation of the public prosecutors is concerned.

            I’d trust the legal system more if the old Communist-sympathizer judges were sent to retirement.
            As far as Gyurcsány is concerned, he’ll be caught one way or other, like Al Capone was in the end.

          • wolfi

            Does anyone remember how our right wing loonies went wild about the accusations against those philosphers incl Agnes Heller ?

            Now “Heimlich, still and leise” all accusations have been dropped – but of course nothing in the news …

  • fogie

    “the era of malfeasance, dishonesty, fraud and plunder in Hungary is over.”
    Yes. And the 4-es metro is finished.

    • Grandaddy “Seen It All” Jar

      The problem of Hungary is that the Fidesz government doesn’t seem to know that PPP is the abbreviation of Public Private Partnership. In their dictionary, PPP still means “Parliamentarians’ Private Pockets”. So the Metro 4, Margit Hid and CET projects just mean loads of money for their close friends and related businesses. The longer it all takes, the bigger the pile of dough. Did I hear somebody say “malfeasance, dishonesty, fraud & plunder”?

  • Zsolt

    Lol the Fidesz is corrupt compare to the MSZP-SZDSZ?, -just don’t smoke too much weed again :D

  • Gerald

    Communist judges at work….

  • Observation

    Betcha Viktor has a tummy ache.

  • olga

    re: “The Central Prosecutor’s Office announced on Friday that it has dropped a long-running investigation into allegations of abuse of office against former Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány due to a lack of evidence.”

    How did that become a “vindication” ?

    John Gotti was investigated for about 10 years before there was evidence to charge him and then avoided conviction approx 3 times before he was finally found guilty so I suppose in your opinion he was “vindicated” 3 times.

    @ Anonymous

    re: The fact that there was not enough evidence to bring a prosecution, let alone win one, suggests he is likely innocent. – Yeah, just like Teflon Don (John Gotti)

    • Leto. مؤدّب

      @olga:

      Five or six officials will be tried and Gyurcsány will have to testify. I expect one or more accused may want to save his skin at the expense of Gyurcsány… Besides Gyurcsány, as a witness, will have to be very cautious not to lie in a provable way or he’d be in trouble… This doesn’t apply to the accused, they are not obliged to say the truth in court.

      • Cnut

        Gyurcsány is very keen to testify, if you’ve been reading his recent pronouncements. He wants to talk about the witch-hunt.

        • Leto. مؤدّب

          Hopefully he’ll be caught lying in court and finally that’ll be for him what tax evasion was for Al Capone.

    • Cnut

      Olga, there a couple of good resources on the internet regarding this trial. Just google it, because I don’t want to be accused of people being biased. There was never any evidence, and most likely there was no wrong doing on anyone’s part. Two people have been locked up for more than a year and offered deals if they would testify against Gyurcsány. Neither did.

  • olga

    @ Leto

    I am sure Gyurcsany’s lawyer will make sure he is well prepared before he testifies, so I hope you are not too worried about the possibility that he will incriminate himself :) )

    BTW,the headline of this article is very misleading , there is no indication here.

    • Leto. مؤدّب

      @olga:

      No, I’m not. I know the common Hungarian saying though: “Addig jár a korsó a kútra, míg el nem törik.” Gyurcsány will end up in jail sooner or later. :)

      BTW, headlines are often very misleading on this site.

      • Paul

        Gyurcsány will end up in jail sooner or later. Having wet dreams again Leto?

        • Leto. مؤدّب

          Nope, that’s you. My wet dreams are about gorgeous women.
          Yes, Gyurcsány will end up jail sooner or later … just like Al Capone did in the end (for tax evasion, not for all those murders).

          • Physiological Evidence

            1. Wet dreams are believed to happen when the body is not getting release from the hormonal build up of the teen years or sudden “dry spells” in sexually active individuals.

            2. Some experts theorize that wet dreams are one of the many sub conscious ways that the body handles stress – they seem to happen more frequently in teens and young adults because this age group is thought to be under extreme stress.

            We have some evidence here that Leto is a teenage boy. But, the evidence is not strong. However, we have not proved that Leto is innocent of being a teenage boy and sooner of later he will be found out to be a pimply adolescent.

            It is of course also possible that he is an adult male who is unsuccessful finding a partner of either* sex.

            In either case he is guilty of something.

            I doubt that it is a coincidence that the reCaptcha for this comment is “his ovoleg”. It may even be another piece of evidence.

            * – “gorgeous women” is well known code for leather clad garda free for all.

          • Paul

            Naaaw…it;s YOU

          • Paul

            @ Leto

            of course

  • olga

    “vindication” not indication (or to be exact, no indication of vindication)

  • Viking

    Leto. مؤدّب says:
    July 20, 2012 at 2:24 pm

    In other words a witness has to tell the truth in court (or he will be punished)
    —-

    It is a much bigger problem for the Prosecution to prove perjury, then the witness just need to tell The Truth And Nothing But The Truth as the witness knows it

    It is not perjury if one witness remembers that the robber had green hair, even if other witnesses remembers blue hair. Witnesses tell about their recollection

    The classic case of perjury is when a witness changes the story from being sympathetic to the Prosecution, to becoming a co-defendant, maybe due to have been threatened by friends of the defendant
    For some reason I really hope ‘leto’ should hold her breath for that perjury trial against Gyurcsány…

  • Magyar

    Gyurcsány is “innocent” because he is in politics, thus a protective bubble surrounds him.

  • olga

    @ Cnut

    re: “there a couple of good resources on the internet regarding this trial. Just google it, because I don’t want to be accused of people being biased. There was never any evidence, and most likely there was no wrong doing on anyone’s part. Two people have been locked up for more than a year and offered deals if they would testify against Gyurcsány. Neither did.”

    Few things: unless someone actually looks at the evidence the way the defense and the prosecution have the chance to do, articles mean nothing and can be subjective and speculative – I am sure an Eva Balog would look at the publicly known facts from a different perspective than a Leto.

    I also know that the most damaging evidence can be excluded at a trial for various reasons and that’s why a person can be charged with 20 different crimes and by the time the case goes to trial most of them have been dropped due to “inadmissible evidence”; if enough evidence is excluded the case can collapse or can result in a “non-guilty” verdict.

    People being offered deals are common – the Prosecution wants to get the “big fish” and needs the evidence but there are usually very good reasons for the “little fish” not to talk.

    Please don’t get me wrong, I have no idea if Gy. is guilty or not, it’s just that lack of evidence and innocence ought not be confused and I think the headlines should match the body of an article.

    • Cnut

      When you have a whole special prosecution and investigation set up to get Gyurcsány, and then after two years and hundreds of millions of forints, they can’t charge him with a single misdemeanor. I would use the word vindicated.

      As you know, in Hungary and Canada, there is only guilty and not guilty. Here it didn’t even go to court.

      I always assumed Gyurcsány was a little bit corrupt. But now, after two years of an army of prosecutors looking into all of his affairs, and not finding anything (not just admissible evidence), I’m starting to think he wasn’t corrupt at all, and that it was just other elements in his party (Puch et al).

      • Leto. مؤدّب

        “and then after two years and hundreds of millions of forints”

        You know justice and law are two different things. Justice would be to hang Gyurcsány high in no time with a manila rope. Law is more troublesome, it’s time consuming and it’s costly, too.

        • Viking

          ‘leto’ does not need to worry
          A swift trial is reserved for Orban in the Summer of 2014 and the “manila rope” is already being prepared…

          • Viking

            …and of course, none of the Judges will be less than 65 zears of age in the Summer of 2014. Just to be sure Orban’s trial is both swift, cost-effective, democratic and fair

        • Leto. مؤدّب

          For example a 20 mm manila rope would do that justice to Gyurcsány. Though it’s overkill a bit (it’s fine up to 1850 kgs) but it looks good.
          -http://www.kenderfono.hu/termekeink/kenderkotel/
          I cannot find how much it costs per meter but I’m absolutely sure the required length of rope is a lot cheaper than “hundreds of millions of forints”

          Well, anyway, in lack of justice, one must content himself with the costly and lengthy ways of the law.

          • Viking

            Leto. مؤدّب says:
            July 28, 2012 at 12:43 pm

            one must content himself with the costly and lengthy ways of the law
            —

            Not so much happened there, even the Ukrainians do that part better, so the ‘Hungarians’ (read Fidesz) find themselves out-competed in the Carpathian Basin once again

            So with a botched trial and feeling out-competed by the Ukrainians, ‘leto’ has a lot of ‘content himself’ to do…

  • Viking

    olga says:
    July 24, 2012 at 2:40 am

    lack of evidence and innocence ought not be confused
    —

    In Sweden you can get the State to pay damages to a person accused for a crime, publicly exposed as a criminal, if the Prosecutor later drops the case

    Would probably not apply to a public figure, they are suppose to be more resilient, more to the simple person, just to protect the simple person from the excess of the State

    It is rather simple, if there are not enough evidence to even charge a person, that person is legally innocent, even if you do not like him/her

  • olga

    @ Viking

    re: “In Sweden you can get the State to pay damages to a person accused for a crime, publicly exposed as a criminal, if the Prosecutor later drops the case”

    I don’t know Swedish law but what you posted doesn’t add up otherwise Swedish law prevents investigations of alleged crimes due to fear of having to pay damages. I mentioned John Gotti avoiding charges while being investigated for years but I guess in Sweden he could have sued for damages during those periods, not to mention he could have sued the government after all those “non-guilty” verdicts. The poor man did have an unsavory reputation.

    Back to Gyurcsany – Discounting the misleading headline of this article, the first paragraph said:

    “The Central Prosecutor’s Office announced on Friday that it has dropped a long-running investigation into allegations of abuse of office against former Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány due to a lack of evidence.”

    So what are you saying? If a politician was suspected of the same crimes in Sweden, there would be no investigation due to fear of being sued for damages if the Prosecution could not come up with enough evidence to reasonably expect a conviction? ( “Sorry, we can’t investigate alleged crimes because what if we can’t find enough evidence?”)

    Bad luck for Blagojevich that he was not running for office in Sweden:

    NY Times:

    “In August 2010, a jury in the corruption case against Mr. Blagojevich convicted him of making false statements to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, but also reported that it was hopelessly deadlocked on 23 of the 24 counts against him.

    On June 27, 2011, jurors convicted the former governor of 18 of the 20 counts against him in his second federal corruption trial of trying to sell or trade President Obama’s old Senate seat ”

    Just think, in Sweden he could have sued for being falsely accused of several charges because I think at the end of the day he was was “only” found guilty of 17 charges.

    • Viking

      olga says:
      July 27, 2012 at 5:29 pm

      Swedish law prevents investigations of alleged crimes due to fear of having to pay damages
      —

      Never noticed that it did
      Swedish levels on damages are rather low, so it will never be a big hole in the State budget
      And it is more or less impossible for a public figure to get damages, even when they are as low as they are

      There is one distinction here, that I forgot and that is that the i9nnocent person has been taken into Custody and was acquitted in a trial, meaning if you do time and the Prosecutor drops the charges, you get a penalty. Same thing if you have your day in Court and win, you get your money

      And the money is standard just over 2 KEUR for the first month, then 1.5 KEUR for the remaining months
      If your case is very public, then you can maybe get 5 times that amount, which happened to persons that were wrongly accused by Prosecutor to have killed Foreign Minister Anna Lindh and PM Palme

      2011 800 innocent people that ended up in Custody shared 2 MEUR, so I think the Swedish State can handle that sum

      It is though an important legal thing that Prosecutors should really have a Good Case ™, when getting people into Custody

      Same thing when a sentencing is annulled by either a higher Court or on appeal, due to new evidence – damages

      Given all this, you still have that Prosecutor who wants to interview Assange, meaning, your conclusion that this would stop Prosecutors from ‘harassing’ people does not carry any water in Sweden
      Or Swedes are just strange?

  • olga

    @ Viking

    clearly you know the answer – it is in the last sentence after the word \or\ – Thank God those kids have the strong Magyar genes to cancel out the recessive \strange genes\ :) )

More content from Hungary's leading foreign-language media network
About Politics.hu | Become an All Hungary Member | Newsletters | Contact Us | Advertise With Us
All content © 2004-2013 The All Hungary Media Group. Articles, comments and other information on the All Hungary Media Group's network of sites are provided "as is" without guarantees, warranties, or representations of any kind, and the opinions and views expressed in such articles and columns are not necessarily those of the All Hungary Media Group.