Former Budapest vice-mayor sentenced to suspended prison for embezzlement – UPDATE

Budapest, January 26 (MTI) – A court in southeastern Hungary handed a two-year prison term, suspended for four years, to Miklos Hagyo, Budapest’s former Socialist deputy mayor, on charges of embezzlement on Tuesday.

Five other defendants out of a total 15 in the case, initiated under suspicion of major corruption, have similarly been sentenced to suspended prison terms of various length.

Hagyo, together with Zsolt Balogh, another defendant, has also been sentenced to pay 39.6 million forints (EUR 126,600) in compensation to BKV. The former deputy mayor, however, has been acquitted of charges of receiving a bribe of 30 million forints.

According to the ruling, in some of the cases in which the prosecution cited corruption, this could not be established, even if “winners in some tenders had been selected on a basis of acquaintanceship”.

Hagyo was originally accused of running a criminal gang and causing huge damages to municipal public transport company BKV in the years before August 2008.

Photo: MTI

Source: http://mtva.hu/hu/hungary-matters