Hungary: Indictment against a former Member of the European Parliament and his accomplices

11/12/2020

The Central Investigative Public Prosecution Office has submitted an indictment to the Metropolitan Court of Justice for budgetary fraud causing extraordinary damage and for other criminal offences against a former Member of the European Parliament and his seven accomplices.

An investigation has been launched based on the judicial recommendation of the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) against a former Member of the European Parliament (MEP), in office between 2009 and 2014.

According to the indictment, the former MEP - in the exercise of his mandate between 2009 and 2014 unduly obtained a significant part of the subventions. He did so through the unauthorized acquisition of travel expenses, the partly fictitious employment of parliamentary assistants, fictive costs for receiving visitor groups in Brussels and through overpriced service contracts for the production of publications.

The former MEP – partly independently and partly with the help of his accredited parliamentary assistants, as well as with the aid of the managers of the affected companies - misled the competent services of the European Parliament and caused more than HUF 155 million (EUR 500.000) financial damage to the budget of the European Parliament.

The former MEP denies committing the crimes, while one of his associates has made a partial confession.

The most serious crime committed by the defendants is punishable by five to ten years' imprisonment, and in the case of the former MEP, the average for sentencing due to the accumulation of crimes is ten years.

Read the original press release (in Hungarian)