Viktor Orban has accused his political opponents of working hand in hand with the EU to spy on his government
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has ordered an investigation into the alleged wiretapping of Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto by at least one EU member state. The operation was aided by a Hungarian opposition journalist.
The probe was announced on Monday, after the Washington Post and Politico published reports claiming that Szijjarto phoned Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov during breaks in EU meetings to give Lavrov “live reports on what had been discussed.” The reports cited unnamed “European security” officials.
Szijjarto dismissed the claims as “lies and fake news,” but Hungarian conservative outlet Mandiner revealed on Monday that Szijjarto’s contact details had likely been passed to EU security officials by Szabolcs Panyi, an opposition journalist in Hungary.
In an audio file released by Mandiner, Panyi can be heard telling a source how he gave Szijjarto’s phone number to “a state organ of an EU country.” Panyi then explains that once the agency he spoke to has a person’s phone number, they can extract “information about who that number spoke to, and they see who is calling that number or who that number is calling.”
In a Facebook post on Monday, Panyi confirmed that he was the person on the recording. He said that he was asking his source whether she knew of any alternate numbers used by Szijjarto or Lavrov, “so that I could compare them with information received from the national security service of a European country.”
“We are dealing with two serious issues,” Orban stated on Monday. “There is evidence that Hungary’s foreign minister was wiretapped, and we also have indications of who may be behind it. This must be investigated immediately.”
Later in the audio file, Panyi tells his source that he is a “quasi-friend” of Anita Orban, a member of opposition leader Peter Magyar’s Tisza party, and Magyar’s pick to replace Szijjarto as foreign minister, should Tisza win next month’s parliamentary elections. Panyi suggests that he has close links to Tisza, and would be in a position to recommend “who should stay or be removed” if Magyar takes power.
Panyi is an editor with Vsquare, and leads the outlet’s Budapest office. Vsquare is funded by the US State Department’s National Endowment for Democracy (NED), USAID, and two EU-financed journalism funds. Earlier this month, Vsquare claimed to have uncovered evidence that “election fixers” with Russia’s military intelligence agency, the GRU, were working in Budapest to swing the upcoming elections for Orban.
The report, which cited anonymous “European national security sources,” provided no evidence, but was used by Magyar’s campaign to attack Orban.
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