Former Jobbik MEP charged with fraud

The public prosecutor’s office has charged former opposition Jobbik MEP Csanád Szegedi and seven accomplices with defrauding the European Parliament’s budget of more than 155 million forints (EUR 433,800) and other crimes, the prosecutor’s office said on Thursday.

Imre Keresztes, the head of the Central Prosecutor’s Office of Investigations, told MTI the investigation was launched against a former MEP at the recommendation of the EU’s anti-fraud body, OLAF.

Szegedi was a Jobbik MEP between 2009 and 2012, and then sat in the EP as an independent until 2014. According to the charges, he defrauded the EP’s budget by drawing up fraudulent employment contracts and falsely claiming or overpricing travel expenses, as well as the expenses of hosting visitors and other services.

Some of Szegedi’s assistants acted as accomplices, the charges said.

Szegedi denies the charges, while a former assistant has partially admitted the crime, Keresztes said.

Fraud at such a scale is punishable by up to 10 years in prison under Hungarian law, the statement said.

Read alsoJobbik MEP Gyöngyösi: From a democracy to an authoritarian regime – Orbán’s dirty tricks

Source: MTI