Covered-up car crash of Hungarian ex-ambassador to Austria unveiled
Change language:
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.”