Hungary: Lifting Immunity from Prime Minister After Phone Taken During Nightclub Fight

Budapest - Afaq News - The Hungarian parliament voted today, Monday, to lift the parliamentary immunity of three deputies, including the new Prime Minister Peter Magyar, allowing ongoing criminal investigations against them to continue.

Magyar, who came to power in April of last year in a political shift that ousted former Prime Minister Viktor Orban, is facing an investigation on suspicion of theft related to an incident that occurred in June 2024, when he snatched a phone from a person during a dispute at a nightclub in Budapest before throwing it into the Danube River.

Magyar stated that the investigation against him is nothing but a "theater" driven by political considerations, but he requested his party members to support lifting his immunity, affirming that he has nothing to hide.

The incident dates back to the night of June 20-21, 2024, about two years before his victory in the general elections and his assumption of the premiership. At that time, Magyar was leading the opposition party "Tisa," which emerged as one of the main political competitors to Orban.

Magyar had gone out with a number of friends to a luxury nightclub in Budapest, where he snatched a phone from a person he claimed was continuously filming him, along with his friends and other young people, despite repeated requests to stop. After that, Magyar left the venue and threw the phone into the Danube River.

Magyar stated at the time that the person filming him was not just a passerby, but a "paid provocateur from the Fidesz party," Orbán's party, claiming that he had been stalking him and his friends on previous nights as well. He added that the man was filming them and other young people in the club up close and provocatively, hurling insults at them in an attempt to provoke them and incite a fight.

In contrast, Magyar's opponents published accounts accusing him of being drunk inside the club, behaving disorderly, harassing women, and that security guards escorted him outside. Magyar denied these accusations and described them as complete lies.

Later, divers retrieved the phone from the bottom of the Danube River for use in the investigation.

Magyar refused to consider what he did as theft, accusing the authorities of politically pursuing him, pointing out that the investigation was opened during Orbán's rule, and that the estimated damage to the phone barely exceeds 300 dollars.

The new prime minister also criticized the public prosecutor's office for requesting to lift his immunity simultaneously with a request to lift the immunity of two former ministers from Orbán's government, at a time when the accusations against the ministers relate to embezzling tens of millions of dollars from public funds and receiving bribes worth millions of dollars.

Before the vote, Magyar asked his party members to support lifting the immunity, and he told the deputies: "I have not committed a crime, and I take responsibility for all my actions. Those who have nothing to hide stand publicly."

He emphasized that everyone is equal before the law, from the factory worker to the Prime Minister.

Parliamentary immunity, a common practice in European democracies as well as in Israel, provides protection for deputies from political prosecution, allowing them to perform their duties and express their opinions freely without fear.