Opposition: Hungarian President should not pardon terrorists

The opposition LMP party has proposed that parliament should adopt a political statement to ensure that “terrorists and other criminals jeopardising society’s structure, unity, and security” are not granted a presidential pardon.

Antal Csárdi, LMP’s deputy group leader, told a press conference on Friday that President Katalin Novák had made a mistake when she pardoned György Budaházy and his accomplices. “No pardon should be granted to people that will then pose a threat to Hungary,” he insisted.

Quoting the court decision under which Budaházy and his group had been sentenced on charges of terrorism and other crimes, Csárdi said “it was by mere chance that the group’s activities had not taken lives”. The convicts had set fire to the homes of public officials, and threw petrol bombs at two gay bars, Csárdi said, insisting that “nothing justified the president’s pardon”.

Parliament should call on the president to grant her pardon in a way that “it does not cause great anxiety in society’s everyday life”, Csárdi said. He added that a pardon granted to somebody effectively sentenced for terrorism was worrying.