The police have also suspected three people in the corruption case known as the City Hall Gate, linked to the capital's left wing - Magyar Nemzet learned from the authority's response to the newspaper's questions. The scandal erupted last fall, when it was revealed that the Budapest city government wanted to secretly sell the City Hall. From the recordings leaked by Anonymus, it became clear that real estate sales in the capital were handled by a well-defined circle in a "commission" system. The fact that the police have ten hours of uncut footage is believed to help the investigation.
Several suspects in the City Hall Gate case have been interrogated by the National Investigation Agency (NNI) in recent days, the police revealed in their response to the Magyar Nemzet. The newspaper contacted the authorities after Gordon Bajnai wrote in a Facebook post on Sunday that there was a smear campaign against him in the City Hall case, and then mentioned manipulation and a cut audio recording. However, according to the communications department of the ORFK, three persons were suspected of influence peddling in the case, who are defending themselves at large. The newspaper has no information about the identity of the suspects.
The prelude to what happened is that Anonymus released several audio materials last fall, from which it was revealed that they wanted to secretly sell the extremely valuable City Hall building complex and the land belonging to it. In connection with the real estate, not only Russian, but also Italian, American and Israeli investors were approached. Based on the recorded conversations, the picture emerged that a well-defined circle specializing in real estate sales operated a "commission" system in the capital, and bribes were paid to certain individuals.
The scandal, known as City Hall-gate, was sparked by Index: last November, the newspaper wrote that the capital wanted to sell the City Hall, which is considered one of the symbols of Budapest. Responding to the letter, Mayor Gergely Karácsony denied that the municipality was looking for a buyer for the total area of almost five hectares or a larger part of it. It wasn't long before the revealing articles and recordings followed. From the audio materials published by the masked figure and other publicized information, it became clear that they really wanted to sell the City Hall, for a "commission" of several billions.
One of the protagonists of the case is Zsolt Berki, who in principle operates without any official position, who, according to the data we have learned so far, has taken steps towards several well-known business circles in Hungary in connection with the City Hall project and several other real estate transactions in Budapest. Based on the testimony of the correspondence that is part of the investigation files, Berki did not care much about appearances, the antecedents were often included in the dispatches, so essentially the entire chain can be clearly identified.
There was even an example where the letter was the forwarding of an e-mail previously sent to another business circle. The reason why Zsolt Berki can move so comfortably in left-wing circles can be explained by the fact that his brother, József Berki, also mentioned in the confessions , worked alongside the late MSZP minister Péter Kiss. This can be dated to the period when Péter Kiss' head of the secretariat Ambrus Kiss was the current deputy mayor. In other words, the left-wing embeddedness of the Berki family cannot really be questioned. The Berki brothers closely coordinated their tasks, and several e-mails also prove that they received the inside information directly from an employee of the capital asset manager led by Balázs Barts.
By the way, Zsolt Berki also appears on the Anonymus audio recordings, on which the voices of the chief asset manager Balázs Barts and Gordon Bajnai and his old Wallis "comrade", left-wing businessman Gyula Gansperger can also be identified. According to one recording, Bajnai was involved in the negotiation when they tried to sell the City Hall to the billionaire Rahimkulov family of Russian origin.
At the hearing, Bajnai said that investors can expect that several "sharks" will attack the business and will ask for a commission in exchange for the help. "There are at least two problems from a management point of view. So it's a six-party coalition, right? Here, someone smells the possibility of a deal, a business, then everyone immediately wants to act as an intermediary. In order to be able to ask for a commission," Bajnai said, explaining: "as soon as news of such a thing spreads, [...] such a coalition has sharks". According to the former prime minister, there are a lot of these sharks swimming in the lake, and in a grand coalition, everyone has parts of it.
"This is reality, this is how it works," said the former prime minister, referring to the left wing in the capital, according to the recording. It can also be seen from the audio that Barts Bajnai was convinced by Balázs "at a much higher level" that there was an intention to sell the Town Hall, but hinted that the project could be attacked, and did not consider it lucky if details about it were revealed before the elections.
It later came to light that, in addition to the Russians, the City Hall was offered to Israeli, American, Arab and Italian businessmen through Berki. The representative of the latter investors was Riccardo Salvatore, who, according to a testimony, mentioned a multibillion-dollar "commission" in connection with the sale of the City Hall. It is worth knowing about the Italian businessman that he gave many people the parameters, characteristics and future utilization possibilities of the City Hall. An important circumstance is that Salvatore insisted that the participants in the transaction sign a confidentiality statement.
After the scandal broke out, the entrepreneur asked those connected to him to delete all messages and documents related to the City Hall. The removal of the traces was presumably necessary so that they could not identify the persons operating the corruption machine in the capital, who wanted to sell several properties in addition to the City Hall according to the "commission" system. These included a Tétényi út, a Bécsi út, and 2–4 Rimaszombati út. land located at In the latter case, the "commission", i.e. the bribe, would have been HUF two billion.
After the town hall scandal broke out, Fidesz member of parliament Gyula Budai made several reports, but István Tényi, known for his public interest reports, also turned to the investigative authority based on information published in the press.
The National Bureau of Investigation has launched an investigation on suspicion of influence peddling, fraud, bribery, accepting bribes, abuse of office and dishonesty. As part of the investigation, the police also conducted searches, among other things, the investigators also appeared at the headquarters of the Budapest City Capital Asset Management Zrt. on Attila út. It later turned out that a search was also held at the City Hall with the chief clerk and the general deputy mayor Kiss Ambrus, and computer data carriers were examined during the investigation.
It is not known who NNI "addressed", but it is a fact that Bajnai Gordon - at a time very close to the suspicions - published the previously mentioned post on his Facebook page, according to which the police suspended the investigation launched due to the illegal collection of data , in which he made the complaint after the audio recordings of him were leaked. Bajnai testified that the police had also written in their decision that the recordings published of him were mixed up. Later, Gergely Karácsony also posted and called the City Hall case a hoax. Bajnai and the mayor only forgot to mention that the suspects were not picked up based on the audio materials published in the press, but on the complete, uncut, ten-hour recordings that Anonymus provided to the investigators before Christmas last year.
The police also interrogated a very important Crown witness in the case, through whom Zsolt Berki offered the City Hall to the American investors.
Witness No. 1 stated that he discussed the sale three times with Berki, whom he has known for three years and who regularly sent him e-mails about properties for sale in the capital. In response to the investigators' questions, witness number 1 said: in one of the personal meetings, it was discussed that the price of the City Hall would be forty billion forints, and the "commission" was ten percent, which the witness was shocked by. He claimed that Zsolt Berki told him that if he was seriously interested in the business, he would have to negotiate with Deputy Mayor Kata Tüttő. Later, Berki sent witness 1 a draft contract, which included the purchase price and the "commission". The former amount changed to "thirty", while the latter, i.e. the "commission", remained at ten percent.
In our opening image: Anonymous masked demonstrators protested at the City Hall due to the Karácsony scandal on 12/15/2021. Photo: Tamás Purger / MH
Source: magyarnemzet.hu
