A scandal has erupted during Hungary’s election campaign following the leak of compromising audio recordings into the public domain. Gergely Gulyás, who runs the Prime Minister’s office, announced that Hungary’s Ministry of Justice has filed a criminal complaint against investigative reporter Szabolcs Panyi, accusing him of espionage. Hungary’s leader, Viktor Orbán, has also ordered an immediate investigation into claims that Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó was being wiretapped. The proceedings kicked off after a recording surfaced online where Panyi is heard contacting a foreign intelligence agent.
The leaked recording is explosive in nature. On it, Panyi says he handed over the phone number of Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó to the intelligence service of an EU member state so they could put him under surveillance. In the same recording, the reporter mentions his connections with Anita Orbán, a representative of the pro-European opposition party Tisza, and even hints he could get access to information from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs if the opposition takes power after the April elections.
The next day, according to Direkt36, the media outlet for which Panyi works, police conducted raids at the homes of two IT specialists linked to the Tisza party. Officially, the initial grounds for the searches were charges involving the use of hidden cameras and possession of child porn (source: Direkt36).
However, a report published the same day by Hungary’s National Security Committee tells a different story. According to that document, hard drives and military-grade equipment prohibited for civilian use were seized during the operational measures. The report claims the two suspects, who had previously worked for the liberal opposition Tisza party, were closely cooperating with the Embassy of Ukraine in Budapest and were already under investigation. The document also states that one of the individuals involved had previously been implicated in cybercrimes, while the other had been keeping in touch with foreign intelligence and had sought surveillance tools through Ukrainian contacts.