Covered-up car crash of Hungarian ex-ambassador to Austria unveiled

Former Hungarian ambassador to Vienna, Vince Szalay-Bobrovniczky, caused a car crash in Vienna with his children in the car, but the case was quietly smoothed over in Austria, even though he could have faced a prison sentence.

In a detailed article, Telex uncovered the accident of the Hungarian ambassador to Vienna that happened eight years ago and found out about the way Vince Szalay-Bobrovniczky, the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Austrian authorities handled the matter.

According to 24, on the evening of April 26, 2013, Szalay-Bobrovniczky was driving home from a private event with his family in an embassy service Mercedes when a Volkswagen taxi stopped in front of him on a straight, one-way street at 5 Vorlaufstraße.

The ambassador crashed into the taxi with the service Mercedes and pushed the Volkswagen taxi into a Mercedes A-Class just about to leave the parking space nearby.

Police officers arriving at the scene measured the preliminary alcohol level of Szalay-Bobrovniczky, and the breathalyser gauged a 0.84 mg/l air alcohol level. According to a police report obtained by Telex, the ambassador “showed clear signs of alcoholic influence; the smell of alcoholic beverages could be clearly felt on his breath”.

Six people were in the embassy’s five-person service Mercedes: apart from the ambassador, his wife and four children were also in the vehicle. The police even reported that no safety devices were installed for the seating of the children. Szalay-Bobrovniczky and his family disembarked from the vehicle without injury, but in the other two cars,

two people had been slightly injured: the passenger of the taxi and the driver of the Mercedes A-class. One of them was even transported to the hospital but was soon released.

Szalay-Bobrovniczky told Telex that he had waived his diplomatic immunity and submitted himself to police action. The politician currently working in the Prime Minister’s Office answered the following to 24’s question about his drunkenness:

“I was positive that I only consumed alcohol to the extent permitted by Austrian law; presumably the measurement was higher because I was taking medication for which I had a medical attestation.”

The news of the accident in Vienna did not reach the Austrian press, and Szalay-Bobrovniczky kept silent about the exact circumstances of the car crash even from the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs despite the fact that as an ambassador, it would have been his duty to report everything in detail to his superiors. In his official note, the ambassador described the incident as a simple traffic accident.

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He only reported that he had an accident with the service car, and one person in each of the other two vehicles was slightly injured, but they did not file a complaint. He did not mention in his report that he was under the influence of alcohol and that he transported more passengers than he should have, and without any required safety devices. Furthermore, he simply requested the damage done to the cars to be settled in full as part of the casco insurance. The fact that the Austrian Public Prosecutor’s Office opened an ex officio investigation on behalf of the injured was also omitted.

If he did not have diplomatic immunity, refusing to blow the breathalyser alone could have led to the revocation of his license for at least half a year, and they could have fined him for €1,600 to €5,900 and even charge him with causing bodily harm by negligent behaviour under the influence of alcohol, which is punishable by up to 6-months imprisonment per the Austrian Penal Code.

Two months after the accident, the Austrian Public Prosecutor’s Office closed the case. The investigation was closed by referring to the appropriate point of the Vienna Diplomatic Convention. Szalay-Bobroviczky was informally summoned to the Austrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and they agreed on the conditions to end the investigation.

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Featured image: facebook.com/vince.szalaybobrovniczky

Source: Telex.hu, 24.hu