The Kuria, Hungary’s supreme court, has upheld a lower court acquittal of Ibolya David, the former leader of the now defunct MDF party, in a case dating back to 2008 involving private secret security firm UD.
At a press conference in 2008, David said that people associated with UD had attempted to interfere with internal affairs of her former party, and released secretly recorded telephone conversations as evidence. The persons David named at the time sued her on grounds of their right to privacy, while the public prosecutor also raised charges against the party leader.
In April, a lower court already acquitted David, and former Socialist minister in charge of the secret services Gyorgy Szilvassy, another suspect in the case, but the prosecutor appealed the verdict.
The prosecutor had accused Szilvasy, David and two others, Karoly Herenyi, the MDF deputy leader, and Karoly Toth, the one-time Socialist deputy chairman of the national security committee, of making public secretly recorded telephone conversations between then opposition Fidesz politicians Laszlo Kover, the current House Speaker, Ervin Demeter, a one-time minister in charge of the secret services, and Jozsef Horvath, one of the heads of UD, thereby violating their basic rights.
