Socialists urge prosecution, court to work together on Quaestor case

Budapest (MTI) – The opposition Socialist Party on Thursday called on the court and prosecution handling the case of failed brokerage Quaestor to work together closely to guarantee that charges can be raised and the case can go to trial.

Lawmaker László Szakács told a press conference in front of the chief prosecutor’s office that the prosecution must file an indictment that ensures that the people charged in the case can be tried.

He said some of Quaestor’s subsidiaries were acting as creditors in the brokerage’s liquidation procedure, which allows them to receive their claims sooner than the victims.

“They’ve started dispersing Quaestor’s assets,” Szakács said. He said one of the firm’s most valuable assets, a luxury hotel, was now being operated by a different company, which he said was loosely connected to Lőrinc Mészáros, the mayor of Felcsut, the prime minister’s hometown.

Szakács said Quaestor’s victims preferred to be compensated from the company’s assets, despite claims that they would have to be compensated from public money.

Quaestor went bankrupt last year after it was found to have sold some 150 billion forints (EUR 483m) of unsanctioned bonds.

In February, the prosecutor pressed charges against eleven individuals for embezzlement, fraud and other offences related to the case. The Municipal Court of Budapest originally intended to begin the trial by May but later returned the prosecution’s indictment citing incomplete listing of evidence. The prosecutor refused to refile the indictment insisting that it had been prepared correctly.

On Thursday evening a few hundred people joined a demonstration organised by the opposition Egyutt party in front of the chief prosecutor’s office.

They demanded that the prosecution should properly prepare the indictment to allow that a trial could begin next month.

Levente Pápa, Egyutt’s deputy leader, called the document “a patchwork” and he called on the chief prosecutor “not to even try to whitewash” the case of former Quaestor chief Csaba Tarsoly whom he called “Hungary’s greatest thief.”

István Kálmán-Pikó, a Quaestor client, said they will not let the prosecutor’s office stand in the way of clearing the Quaestor case.

Photo: MTI

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