Hungarian prosecutors have detained two former ministers from Viktor Orbán’s government hours after parliament stripped them of their legal immunity.
Balázs Hankó, culture and innovation minister until May 2026, was taken into custody on the evening of September 28, after a summons sent him to the prosecutor’s office. Miklós Seszták, national development minister between 2014 and 2018, had been detained earlier the same day.
The service pursuing both men has had no confirmed head since August 25, when Gábor Bálint Nagy’s mandate expired. He stood down after Magyar publicly branded him an obstacle to the change of system, saying the prosecution must not become an instrument in political struggles.
The post is filled by a two-thirds vote of parliament, a threshold Magyar’s Tisza party reaches on its own. President András Baka nominated the prosecutor Zoltán Szathmáry on September 22, and Magyar said the same day that his group saw no prospect of electing him.
The National Assembly voted 139-0 to suspend the immunity of Hankó and Seszták. Fidesz and its Christian Democrat allies boycotted the session, calling the proceedings political revenge.
Hankó is suspected of mismanagement causing particularly significant financial loss at the National Cultural Fund, which he chaired. Prosecutors say 17.3 billion forints (about €46 million) went to 1,079 awards between September 3, 2025 and March 30, 2026 outside the fund’s statutory purposes.
Part of the money is alleged to have reached Fidesz campaign events and performers who appeared at them, raising the question of unlawful party financing. Hankó is said to have directed 341 million forints (about €900,000) to his own constituency.
The same inquiry produced a July raid on the data centre holding Fidesz’s servers and the arrest of Hankó’s former chief of staff.
Seszták is accused of taking bribes worth some 11 billion forints (about €30 million) tied to bus procurement and construction contracts. He denies wrongdoing and could face up to 10 years in prison.
Hankó spent the day inside the parliament building, inviting officers to collect him there. Police said they would not intervene, and Magyar asked the speaker to admit them.
Orbán broadcast his former minister’s exit live on Facebook and called the case a show trial. Balázs Orbán, political director to the former prime minister, wrote on X that the scene showed “the political arbitrariness of the communist 1950s, unfolding in Hungary in real time”.
Deputies lifted Magyar’s own immunity the same morning, at his request, over a 2024 incident in which prosecutors say he threw a man’s phone into the Danube.
Tisza won a two-thirds majority in April on a promise to dismantle the networks built over Orbán’s 16 years in office. None of the three has been charged.
