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

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 he won the general elections and assumed the presidency of the government. 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 several 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 place 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 tracking 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 had escorted him outside. Magyar denied these accusations, describing them as complete lies.

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

Magyar rejected the characterization of his actions 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 the 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 in public funds and receiving millions of dollars in bribes.

Before the vote, Magyar asked his party members to support lifting his immunity, saying to 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, starting from the factory worker up 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.