Hungarian prosecutors detain two Orbán-era ministers after immunity vote

Hungarian prosecutors have detained two former ministers from Viktor Orbán’s government hours after parliament stripped them of their legal immunity.

Balázs Hankó, culture and innovation minister until May 2026, was taken into custody on the evening of September 28, after a summons sent him to the prosecutor’s office. Miklós Seszták, national development minister between 2014 and 2018, had been detained earlier the same day.

The National Assembly voted 139-0 to suspend the immunity of both men. Fidesz and its Christian Democrat allies boycotted the extraordinary session, calling the proceedings political revenge.

Deputies also lifted the immunity of Prime Minister Péter Magyar, who had asked them to do so. Prosecutors allege he seized a mobile phone from a man filming him in a Budapest bar in 2024 and threw it into the Danube.

Hankó is suspected of mismanagement causing particularly significant financial loss at the National Cultural Fund, which he chaired as minister. Prosecutors say 17.3 billion forints (about €46 million) went to 1,079 awards between September 3, 2025 and March 30, 2026 outside the fund’s statutory purposes.

Part of the money is alleged to have reached Fidesz campaign events and performers who appeared at them, raising the question of unlawful party financing. Hankó is said to have directed 341 million forints (about €900,000) to projects in his own constituency.

The same inquiry, run by the chief prosecutor’s office of Bács-Kiskun county, produced a raid on the data centre holding Fidesz’s servers in July that left the opposition party offline for days. Hankó’s former chief of staff and a former vice-president of the fund were arrested over the summer.

Seszták, a Christian Democrat who stayed in parliament after leaving office, is accused of taking bribes worth some 11 billion forints (about €30 million) tied to bus procurement at state operator Volánbusz and to construction contracts. He denies wrongdoing and could face up to 10 years in prison.

Hankó spent the day inside the parliament building, telling reporters he was not hiding and inviting officers to collect him at his workplace. Police said they would not intervene there.

Orbán broadcast his former minister’s exit live on Facebook and called the case a show trial, saying the new authorities required fresh victims daily.

Magyar’s Tisza party won a two-thirds majority in April on a promise to dismantle the patronage networks built over Orbán’s 16 years in office. Hungary’s prosecutor general resigned in July, saying he would not let his office become an instrument of political struggle.

The European Commission, which had frozen billions of euros over rule-of-law concerns during Orbán’s final term, moved to unblock the money after the change of government. None of the three politicians has been charged.