Hungarian man suspected to have paid 50,000 EUR for diplomatic rank

Police have detained a Hungarian man suspected of promising to arrange honorary consular positions in Africa for money, the public prosecutor’s office said on Friday.

One individual transferred around 50,000 euros to the suspect and received an honorary consular position from an unspecified African country, according to the charges. In another case, an advance of 10,000 euros was made but the administrative process was not undertaken.

Also, the Hungarian is charged with making unlawful offers to high-ranking foreign officials in the hope of keeping his own international positions unrelated to Hungary, the prosecutor said.

The suspect has denied the charges of influence peddling and other crimes related to a foreign official.

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Hungarian foreign minister calls for intensifying international counter-terrorism efforts

International counter-terrorism efforts must be intensified, which is a global task because no single country can defeat such an international threat, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said in New York on Thursday. The ministry cited Szijjártó telling the meeting of a group supporting the victims of terrorism held under the framework of the United Nations General Assembly session that despite all the efforts made, tens and hundreds of thousands become victims of terrorism annually and it is an area that will hopefully get more attention in the future.

Szijjártó said he represented a country that has been a member of the coalition against the terrorist organisation dubbed Islamic State for years and 130 Hungarian soldiers were currently in service in Iraq. He added that it was important to stress that Hungary had over a thousand years of Christian statehood and therefore felt responsibility for persecuted Christians around the world. Christianity is the most persecuted religion in the world, which is why the Hungarian government has launched the Hungary Helps programme and it has so far helped more than half a million people stay in the place of birth or return there.

“We are committed to supporting victims and family members of victims,” he said.

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Szijjártó also said that terrorism and illegal migration formed a “vicious circle” because terrorism was one of the main triggers of migration and it was also a consequence of mass migration. Waves of migrants help terrorists cross country borders, which was witnessed in Europe in 2015, he added.

Some 190,000 border crossing attempts have been prevented by the authorities at Hungary’s southern border already this year, he said. He called for incorporating counter-terrorism action in the UN central budget which he said was currently not the case. This must change because it would be important to increase financing for the fight against terrorism, he added.

Source: MTI