Hungary is indicting a well-known journalist who reported on the ties between the foreign minister and Moscow for espionage
Hungarian investigative journalist Szabolcs Panyi is accused of carrying out espionage in coordination with another country, Prime Minister Viktor Orban's chief of staff Gergely Gulyás announced Thursday, according to ABC.
Panyi writes for the Hungarian investigative publication Direkt36, as well as the Central European investigative publication VSquare, based in Warsaw. He denied the allegations, and VSquare accused the Hungarian government of “resorting to authoritarian tactics” to discredit the journalist and his reporting.
The journalist writes primarily on national security and intelligence issues and has published extensive investigations detailing Russian influence operations in Hungary, as well as the relationship between Moscow and Hungary's Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto.
Accused of giving Szijjarto's number to “a state body”
The scandal began after a conservative Hungarian news channel, Mandiner, published an article and an audio file on Monday in which investigative journalist Szabolcs Panyi talks to a source and says he gave “a state body of an EU country” two phone numbers that Szijjarto used to make calls.
Also on Monday, on his Facebook page, Panyi confirmed that the discussion took place. He said he used the numbers to compare them with information received from a European country's security service for an investigative article on Szijjarto's transfer of information to Russia.
Panyi told Reuters that the government used secret service methods to reveal information about a source's communications when he was investigating an “unpleasant matter” for authorities.
Szijjarto, accused of transmitting to Russia what EU leaders were saying
The Washington Post, citing several current and former European security officials, reported over the weekend that Szijjártó regularly consulted with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov during breaks in EU Council meetings to give him “direct reports on what was discussed” and possible solutions.
Szijjártó denied the accusations but admitted at the same time that he consults with Lavrov before and after EU foreign ministers' meetings about their agenda and decisions.
The government's allegations
In Thursday's press conference, Gergely Gulyás, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's chief of staff, said Hungary's justice minister had filed charges against Panyi on suspicion of espionage. Gulyás said Panyi was “spying against his own country in cooperation with a foreign state” and that his role as a journalist was a “cover activity”.
Gulyás added that it was “legally debatable” whether the journalist's activities constituted treason.
The journalist's reply
Panyi has denied any wrongdoing and rejected Hungarian government allegations that he shared Szijjártó's phone number with a foreign state.
“Accusing investigative journalists of espionage is virtually unprecedented in the 21st century for a member state of the European Union. It is typical of Russia, Belarus and similar Putin regimes,” he wrote.
“Not only have I never engaged in espionage, but I see my investigative work as a kind of counterintelligence journalistic activity” to counter Russian operations, he added.
The journalist, spied on in his turn in the past
An investigation by an international consortium in 2021 found that Panyi had been targeted by the Pegasus military-grade spyware produced by Israel-based NSO Group. Pegasus infiltrates phones to collect personal and location data and can covertly control the phone's microphones and cameras.
A senior government official from Orbán's party later admitted that the Hungarian government had purchased and deployed the software, which was used against at least 10 lawyers, an opposition politician and several journalists critical of the government.
