Biszku receives suspended prison sentence for complicity in war crimes

Budapest, December 17 (MTI) – Communist-era party functionary Bela Biszku on Thursday received a suspended prison sentence for complicity in war crimes.

The Municipal Court of Budapest acting as a court of first instance, however, exonerated Biszku of the charges of ordering the shooting of a total of 49 anti-communist protesters in December 1956 and the beating of academics in March 1957.

The court said it was unable to establish that Biszku, as a member of the Provisional Executive Committee, a central steering body of the then newly formed Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party (MSZMP), served as the instigator of the shootings. The court said there was no evidence that the shootings were even ordered by the Communist leadership.

The court’s reasoning behind the suspended prison sentence was that Biszku was complicit in the crimes because he had failed to hold the actual perpetrators to account.

Biszku was indicted in 2013 for his role in the Provisional Executive Committee’s setting up a special police force, directly controlled by its members, which was then responsible for firing shots at the public, including unarmed protesters. Biszku’s role was qualified as a war crime.

In 2014, a lower court declared Biszku guilty of instigation and complicity to homicide and sentenced him to five and a half years in prison, but in June of this year, a municipal appeals court annulled that ruling and ordered a new trial.

In an additional but separate case, Biszku was found guilty of unlawful possession of ammunition.

He was also found guilty of publicly denying the crimes of the Communist regime in two television interviews in which he referred to the 1956 uprising as a “counter-revolution” and disputed that the Communist Party sentenced its political opponents in show trials.