Ferenc Baja, Csaba Horváth and Zsolt Molnár are also on the dock.

On January 7th, the Budapest Court of Justice will hold the preparatory session in the case known as the Zugló corruption scandal, has learned . The bribery case, which reached the level of high-level politics, erupted in February 2022, when the first suspicions arose: among others, the then mayor of Zugló, Csaba Horváth, was interrogated by the Central Investigative Prosecutor General's Office (KNYF), which since then filed an indictment in August this year. Later, the president of the Zugló MSZP, Csaba Tóth, also became a suspect.

According to the suspicion and the subsequent accusation, in 2016 Csaba Tóth and Csaba Horváth were looking for a company to operate the planned paid parking system in Zugló.

with which they agreed on an overpriced contractor's fee and claimed half of the profits.

According to the prosecutor's office, which is dealing with influence peddling and bribery, among other things, Csaba Tóth requested and received HUF 31 million from the income for himself and Csaba Horváth, and Csaba Tóth received HUF 10-15 million per month, a total of at least HUF 250 million in cash. According to the indictment, the two left-wing politicians shared the income.

The man handing over the money is Zsolt Fuzik, SYS IT Services Kft. he was a former influential colleague. The National Tax and Customs Administration pounced on him in the summer of 2021 on suspicion of budget fraud perpetrated in a criminal organization. Fuzik later made a deal and gave a detailed report to the prosecutor's office about who, when, and what amount of corruption money was received by SIS Parking Kft. from his profit.

However, Fuzik testified in detail not only about the Zugló socialists, but also about Ferenc Baja, the former MSZP minister of environmental protection, and Zsolt Molnár, a member of parliament.

According to his claim, he paid off both of them in order to give the go-ahead to an important application in the capital.

Molnár denied the accusations in his public statements, however, he admitted that he had met Zsolt Fuzik, but according to Molnár, the man who confessed to him was just trying to escape from the invoice seller's case and that is why he gave a false testimony against him. All of this includes the fact that Fuzik took the polygraph and passed the lie test.

In relation to Baja, Fuzik emphasized, among other things, that he is on good terms with Mayor Gergely Karácsony and that he is authorized to discuss IT issues. He also mentioned that he enjoys the support of Deputy Mayor Ambrus Kiss, who is an important person, as he can make decisions about which projects to support and where to take money from, Fuzik said.

He added: Ferenc Baja once showed him a piece of paper with the mayor's signature and the fact that he had become chief IT consultant at the capital.

I gave him the thirty million HUF bribe money in the small park near Várkert Bazaar

Fuzik told investigators.

There are a total of seven defendants in the corruption case, in addition to the left-wing politicians, there are also reports of a right-wing person involved, the Mandiner observed.

Cover photo: Zsolt Molnár, representative of the MSZP, speaks before the agenda at the plenary session of the National Assembly on March 19, 2024.
MTI/Tibor Illyés