November 8th Hearing: Defendants Respond to Regőczi’s Testimony

On Thursday, November 8^th, 2012 the previously stated testimony from the former BKV deputy CEO of communication and sales Miklós Regőczi was the hot topic in the Keckemét Tribunal.

Regőczi was the first to speak during the hearing.  He continued to support the controversial marketing contracts which were previously deemed prodigal.  He defended the BKV marketing campaign which occurred under his supervision from 2007 until 2008 by list annual marketing expenditures from other public companies, notably the national railway system MÁV Ltd. which previously signed contracts worth nearly 1 billion forint.

Regőczi, like many of the other defendants, partially renounced his previous accusations against the other defendants, saying that he was coerced into the accusations by the temptation to “go home” the night of interrogation.  Otherwise, it was implied, Regőczi would have endured a harsher interrogation.

Other defendants such as Ernő Mesterházy, political adviser to the former mayor of Budapest, and Attila Antal, former CEO of the Budapest Transport Company, collectively agreed that the circumstances of their and Regőczi’s interrogations should be formally investigated.

Miklós Hagyó and Zsolt Balogh, two of the main suspects in the case who did not speak at the hearing, both expressed experiencing similar duress during their interrogations.

Miklós Hagyó Responds to Antal’s 2010 Accusations

The former Deputy Mayor of Budapest said that he had met Attila Antal prior to the BKV scandal on a few occasions, when he perceived Antal to be of “honest” character.

via Miklós Hagyó Responds to Antal’s 2010 Accusations.

Miklós Hagyó Responds to Antal’s 2010 Accusations

On Tuesday the trial of the eleven associates of the Budapest Public Transport Company (BKV) continued at the Kecskemét Court with the review of Mr. Attila Antal’s testimony from last week and a brief response from Mr. Miklós Hagyó.

Antal continued to withdraw his previous statements from a 2010 interrogation, when under alleged duress from the police, he verbally incriminated Miklós Hagyó, Ernő Mesterházy, and other defendants. The 2010 statements were, thereafter, used by the interrogation authority and the prosecution in charging Miklós Hagyó, among others, with misappropriation of public funds. It is speculated that the accused forced BKV upper-management to negotiate and approve a series of contracts under the guise of the public transport company with persons or organizations that were not considered appropriate for the contracted tasks, but instead were directly or indirectly profitable for Mr. Hagyó.

Though one might think that Mr. Antal had exhausted his current testimony last week by renouncing his 2010 statements, in yesterday’s hearing he answered new questions neither from the defense attorneys nor from the prosecution. Instead, at the urging of Judge Katalin Kutron who sought to record the entire testimony into the court’s official records, he once again returned to the 2010 events. This time, however, he elaborated on his motivations for his original accusations against Hagyó, Mesterházy, and the other defendants.

During the February 4th, 2010 interrogation Antal was recovering from a heart attack, which had required of him a resignation from his post as CEO of BKV. So, according to the former executive, when the police held him in custody during the 2010 interrogation he feared that he would not recover his full health under such circumstances. In that state, Mr. Antal provided for the police, what he said was, their desired accusatory evidence against the other defendants.

Apart from the requested repetition of his story, Mr. Antal did provide for the court new elements of the 2010 circumstances. He stated that he did, in fact, initially provide an “honest,” or otherwise unincriminating, testimony to the police. At that point the police, he claims, refused to grant him leave from the police station until three days later, when Antal verbally accused Hagyó, Mesterházy, and the other defendents.

Mr. Hagyó followed Antal in providing his opinions on the 2010 events. The former Deputy Mayor of Budapest said that he had met Attila Antal prior to the BKV scandal on a few occasions, when he perceived Antal to be of “honest” character. Though Hagyó did not understand why the former CEO accused him in 2010, thus, according to Hagyó, betraying those “honest” characteristics, Miklós professed his content at seeing the “real” Attila Antal in court.

Mr. Hagyó and his defense expressed their disapproval at not being provided the opportunity to confront Antal about his accusations prior to the current trial. According to Miklós’s attorney, this would have permitted both parties to sort out the “contradictions.”

Another Small Win For Miklós Hagyó

The trial of the Budapest Transport Company (BKV) continued on Thursday at the Kecskemét Court.  During the hearing, Mr. Attila Antal, a former BKV CEO accused of misappropriation of public funds, continued his testimony which began on Tuesday.

According to Antal, Mr. Miklós Hagyó, former Deputy Mayor of Budapest who oversaw the operations of BKV through his deputy mayoral capacities, did not force him to create a contract with the company AAM Ltd.  The private company was hired for advisory services in the development of line 4 in the subway system after previously completing 10 successful projects for the public transportation company.  Instead, explained Antal, the company was recommended by Mr. László Becker, a manager of the subway system who had been appointed by the Budapest City Council.

As Antal recalled, the contracts created with AAM Ltd., were necessary for development of the subway system when they were created in 2006 and 2007, and they, in his opinion, are still essential today.  Even though the line 4 projects, worth approximately 500 billion forints, were unsuccessful it was not due to any sort of criminal activity between BKV and AAM.  In reality, the project failure was due to the lack of manpower to execute such a large project, said the defendant.

In addition to these declarations, Antal continuously alluded to his previous claims from Tuesday’s hearing about his incriminating statements from February 4^th, 2010.  According to Antal, on that day the police unexpectedly arrived at his home and demanded that he go with them to the police station for questioning.  Along the way, he recounts, the escorting officers informed him that if he did not play along and provide the statements which they wanted he would be subjected to more severe treatment.  Still in recovery from a heart attack, Antal obliged to their commands by accusing Miklós Hagyó and Ernő Mesterházy of criminal activities, according to him, in fear for his health.  However, he explained, his lawyer only accompanied him once he arrived the police station.  Therefore, there were no other witnesses to observe the exchange.

The central investigation authority said Thursday morning that in the future it will pursue legal action against Antal and Ernő Mesterházy for libel statements.  This, of course, comes in the wake of Antal’s and Mesterházy’s testimonies.  Mesterházy also claimed that he was blackmailed by police during a separate interrogation when the interrogating officers offered him more lenient pre-trial detention treatments if he provided accusatory evidence against Miklós Hagyó.

Antal’s testimony continued to lay the foundation of innocence under the weary feet of Miklós Hagyó who, according to Zsolt Balogh, had ordered members of BKV’s upper management to see through a series of allegedly conspicuous contracts with private companies.  Mr. Balogh, who served as an interim CEO for BKV after Attila Antal suffered the heart attack, suggested the contracts veiled a criminal organization from which Hagyó profited.

The BKV trial will resume in Kecskemét next Tuesday, October 2^nd.

Attila Antal Renounces Previous Incriminating Testimony Against Miklós

Attila Antal, another defendant in the BKV case, has withdrawn a previous testimony which had incriminated Miklós Hagyó and Ernő Mesterházy, main suspects in the high-profile legal battle. This occurred yesterday during the court hearing in Kecskemét.

Antal, who had been the CEO of the Budapest Transport Company (BKV) before Zsolt Balogh replaced him, said that his previous testimony against Hagyó and Mesterházy was fictitiously created according to the approval of his interrogators. According to Antal, he had been “between life and death and police told him that they would only release him if he speaks up.”

Just last week Ernő Mesterházy made similar claims in his written statement to the court of Kecskemét when he said that his interrogators blackmailed him in an attempt to force Mesterházy to incriminate Miklós Hagyó. This, of course, occurred during Mesterházy’s time in pre-trial detention.

At such an early phase in the formal trial, one cannot help but err on the side of skepticism about the accusations of Miklós Hagyó and his associates since the defendants have been, according to their testimonies, subjected to very questionable, if not criminal, interrogations.

Ernő Mesterházy Claims Criminal Conduct by the Investigation Authority

Ernő Mesterházy, one of the main suspects in the high-profile BKV case and the former political advisor to past Budapest mayor Gábor Demszky, said in his written statement during Thursday’s hearing that the investigation authority had committed crimes during interrogations.

The interrogation in question, which had occurred on February 26th, 2010, had lasted 11 hours and resulted in a meager 2-page summary, according to official records. Mesterházy implied in his written statement that the official summary did not include all of the events which transpired during the lengthy hearing.

He elaborated when he accused the investigation authorities of humiliating him and dishonoring his character by attempting to make him incriminate Miklós Hagyó, another main suspect who served as the Deputy Mayor of Budapest under the former Mayor Gábor Demszky. By doing so, Mesterházy would have been excused from his pre-trial detention sentence.

Mesterházy concluded his statement by suggesting that the accusations against him and Miklós Hagyó are politically motived when he said, “I don’t know who is behind all of this, but it will unravel.”

After reading Mesterházy’s written statement to the court, the judge reminded him of the dangers in making false accusations.