Jobbik urges public prosecution probe into Lazar remarks on state land

Budapest, October 8 (MTI) – A lawmaker of the radical nationalist Jobbik party has asked public prosecutor Peter Polt to launch an investigation into recent comments by government office chief Janos Lazar on state land.

Zoltan Magyar referred at a press conference to reported comments by Lazar, who told a parliamentary committee in connection with the planned sale of state-owned farmland, that nobody would want to farm “a few hundred thousand hectares only for the Socialist-affiliated management to steal everything when the Socialists are in government or the Fidesz-affiliated management to steal everything when Fidesz is in government.”

Magyar said that Lazar should have been the one to make a criminal complaint if he had received information that crimes had been committed.

He said Jobbik would request that the public prosecutor interview Lazar as a witness and ask him what he knows, if anything, about possible crimes that were committed. Magyar said Jobbik “isn’t surprised that this is how Hungary works or that such thefts have been committed over the past 25 years”. Jobbik wants this case to be the first for which the people responsible are held accountable, Magyar added.

Magyar noted that the public prosecutor now has 30 days to decide on an investigation, adding however that Jobbik has little hope, “based on experience from the past 25 years”, that a thorough investigation will be carried out.

Magyar said Jobbik wants state land to remain in state ownership and for the government to continue to be able “to intervene in the countryside,” arguing that the public ownership of land is necessary for job creation.

Source: http://mtva.hu/hu/hungary-matters