Socialists: Parliament committee still in dark over terrorists crossing Hungary in 2015

Budapest (MTI) – A Thursday session of parliament’s law enforcement committee revealed no “new substantive information” concerning press reports that perpetrators of the Paris and Brussels terrorist attacks spent time in Budapest last year, an opposition politician said.

Tamás Harangozó, (Socialist) deputy head of the committee, told a press conference after the closed meeting that only “minor details” had come to light, adding that “others should decide themselves whether the session was just a campaign event”. He noted that the Hungarian authorities had been investigating the case since last December. “The question is whether or not there was a reason to hear reports on a case under way for a year just four days before the referendum”.

Lajos Kósa, the committee’s head who is also leader the ruling Fidesz party’s parliamentary group, summed up the reports heard at the meeting, saying the perpetrators could have “used Hungary as a logistics base”. He said they had used the influx of migrants into Europe as cover and had “abused the good faith” of the European and Hungarian authorities.