István Beke and Zoltán Szőcs from Székelyföld, who were convicted of terrorism, were released today - the Erdély.ma portal learned from several reliable sources. A favorable decision was already made in their case at the beginning of June, when the Court of First Instance of Brasov decided that Beke and Szőcs could be released, but the verdict was not final.
István Beke and Zoltán Szőcs have been able to apply for parole since May 2020. Since then, four related requests have been submitted, and the prison's competent committee recommended their release in all cases based on their good behavior. István Beke's requests so far have been rejected by the courts. Zoltán Szőcs had already been ordered to be released by the Brasov Court on two previous occasions, but after the prosecutor's appeal, the Brasov County Court changed the verdict, MTI previously wrote.
The men from Székely, who were convicted of terrorism, would have had their sentences expire in a good seven months.
On July 4, 2018, István Beke and Zoltán Szőcs were sentenced to 5 years in prison by the Bucharest Supreme Court for terrorist acts and incitement to them. The verdict against the head of the Youth Movement of the Sixth County Youth Movement (HVIM) in Kézdivásárhely and in Transylvania caused general consternation among Transylvanian Hungarians, as the first-instance Bucharest Court of Appeal considered most of the indictment drawn up by the prosecution to be unfounded, and sentenced only 11 and 10 months in prison respectively. imposed on them, as much as they had previously spent in pretrial detention.
István Beke and Zoltán Szőcs were brought to court by the Romanian Organized Crime and Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor's Office (DIICOT) because the Romanian authorities deduced from their intercepted conversations and the firecrackers found in István Beke's apartment that they wanted to detonate a homemade bomb in the main square of Kézdivásárhely in 2015, the at the military parade organized for the Romanian national holiday on the first of December.
From the first moment, the Hungarian public in Transylvania considered that a conceptual procedure was being carried out against the young people from Kézdivásárhely. After their arrest, they demonstrated for weeks in Kézdivásárhely. After their final conviction, several extraordinary requests for a retrial were submitted, but all of them were rejected by the Romanian courts.
Erdely.ma
Photo: Zoltán Szőcs and István Beke in prison. Source: erdely.ma
