SPICY SCOOPS
There is always a lot of information that we hear and find interesting and newsworthy but don’t publish as part of our investigative reporting—and share instead in this newsletter.
POLAND INVESTIGATES ROLE OF HUNGARIANS IN ESCAPE AND HIDING OF FUGITIVE POLITICIAN
After speaking at a Budapest screening of a right-wing Polish propaganda film, Zbigniew Ziobro — Poland’s former justice minister and the man behind Warsaw’s illegal Pegasus spyware surveillance scandal — didn’t go back to Poland. He’s been charged there with 26 crimes tied to the alleged defrauding or attempted defrauding of the so-called Justice Fund, and the Sejm has since lifted his parliamentary immunity. Ziobro then held a press briefing exclusively for right-wing Polish media at the Buda Hills HQ of the Center for Fundamental Rights (Alapjogokért Központ) — an Orbán government–funded ultraconservative think tank. When independent Polish TV crews tried to film outside, a Center security guard came out and tried to stop them, even though shooting in public spaces is perfectly legal. But Ziobro was not the first Polish politician having legal troubles to find shelter under this roof. The same Center previously created the Hungarian-Polish Institute of Freedom, specifically to employ Ziobro’s former deputy Marcin Romanowski — who fled 11 criminal charges in Poland last year and was quietly granted political asylum in Hungary. Moreover, they even produced the dubious document that Viktor Orbán cited as the basis for granting the asylum.
Ziobro has been in Hungary for two weeks now and shows no sign of returning home. Most recently, he offered to speak with Polish authorities — but only via the consulate in Budapest or Brussels. On Thursday, however, Polish prosecutors filed a motion with the court to temporarily detain Ziobro. Speculation is now mounting that he might soon get asylum too — possibly making him the second high-ranking Polish politician to dodge justice with Hungarian help. But in both men’s cases, trouble could also be brewing for their Hungarian helpers. My colleague Daniel Flis asked Polish prosecutors whether they’re investigating the possible role of Hungarian citizens in Romanowski’s escape and concealment. The spokesperson of the National Prosecutor’s Office confirmed: “Such a thread is being investigated as part of the main inquiry concerning the Justice Fund, within the investigation conducted by Investigation Team No. 2 of the National Prosecutor’s Office. No one has been charged so far. We are not disclosing the findings at this stage.” Under Polish law, hiding a wanted person or helping them escape carries up to five years in prison (Article 239 §1 of the Penal Code). So yes — it might be time to get the popcorn ready.
“In order to prosecute Hungarian citizens, it is necessary, on the one hand, for the offense to be punishable in both Poland and Hungary, and on the other hand, for Polish law-enforcement authorities to prove the intent of the potential perpetrator — that is, to show that a specific person at least agreed to help Mr. Romanowski escape or hide,” criminal lawyer Paweł Murawski from the Murawski & Marciniak Law Firm told my colleague. However, such a prosecution could be very difficult, as Hungary is already taking “effective political measures to effectively prevent proceedings against Mr. Romanowski” himself. “I believe it is very important for the Polish law-enforcement authorities to thoroughly investigate the circumstances of Mr. Romanowski’s escape from Polish justice and the involvement of third-country nationals in this situation,” Murawski added.
V4 SPEAKERS’ MEETING ABRUPTLY CANCELED, POLISH PRESIDENT’S VISIT COULD BECOME EXPLOSIVE
According to multiple Central European diplomatic sources, Hungary abruptly canceled a planned meeting of the Conference of Speakers of the Parliaments of Visegrád countries, as well as the Conference of Speakers of the Parliaments of South-Eastern Europe, scheduled for November 13–14 in Budapest. The decision — officially justified on vague technical grounds — was communicated late in the afternoon on November 10, just two days before delegations were due to arrive, and without a proper explanation, irritating regional partners. Earlier this year, the Hungarian Visegrád Group presidency had already frustrated them by circulating its presidency agenda unusually late, which some interpreted as disorganization and others as an intentional snub. According to a diplomatic source, it’s likely that very few actual speakers had confirmed their attendance and would have sent only their deputy speakers to Budapest — which could have been an embarrassment for the Hungarian side.
The cancellation — with the meeting now pushed into the first quarter of next year — comes at a sensitive moment: the newly elected Czech Chamber of Deputies has just installed its new speaker, far-right leader Tomio Okamura (who replaced center-right Markéta Pekarová Adamová), and Poland’s Marshal of the Sejm, Szymon Hołownia, is stepping down and replaced by New Left leader Włodzimierz Czarzasty. However, these developments were known well in advance and should not have caught the Hungarian organizers off guard — and it remains unclear whether they played any role at all. Meanwhile, my sources say the more significant V4 presidential summit remains on track: it is set for December 3 in Esztergom, followed by a meeting between Polish President Karol Nawrocki and Hungarian President Tamás Sulyok, as well as a side meeting between Nawrocki and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán in Budapest on December 4. If Zbigniew Ziobro were to receive asylum by then, that meeting could become politically explosive — especially if Nawrocki were to appear publicly with Ziobro in Budapest.
BABIŠ BLAMES CZECH INVESTIGATIVE CENTER FOR LOSING POWER IN 2021, THREATENS THEM WITH “FOREIGN AGENT” LAW
After winning October’s Czech parliamentary election, Andrej Babiš’s populist–far-right coalition unveiled its governing program on October 31, proposing a law that would force “politically active” NGOs receiving foreign funding to disclose it publicly. A classic foreign agent law, following the Kremlin playbook. When asked during a press briefing what qualifies as a “political NGO,” Babiš singled out our friend and colleague Pavla Holcová — head of Investigace.cz, VSquare’s Czech partner and founder (and the person who even came up with the name Goulash that we’re using for this newsletter) — claiming her reporting before the 2021 election cost him his victory. That reporting was part of the Pandora Papers investigation, published just a week before the vote, revealing Babiš’s purchase of a French property through a network of offshore companies. At the recent briefing, Babiš complained that the report misrepresented the property as a “château” and falsely accused him of money laundering, also pointing out that Holcová’s work had received USAID funding. Despite the clear threat such rhetoric poses to press freedom, not a single Czech politician publicly defended Holcová or commented on the coalition’s “Foreign Agents Act” proposal. (Full disclosure: we stand firmly with Pavla and her team.)
I’ve asked Pavla about her reaction. Here it is: “It’s hard to comment on something I don’t understand. Mr. Babiš said that I — as a person — am a political NGO, and that he lost the election because I accused him of money laundering. None of that is true. I’m a human being, not an institution, let alone a political NGO. Second, people didn’t vote against Mr. Babiš (in 2021) because I told them to, but because they wanted political change. And third, I never accused Mr. Babiš of money laundering — rather, various experts in the field, to whom I showed the complex offshore scheme he used to buy his French château, said that, quote, ‘the scheme bears signs of money laundering.’ That’s also why Mr. Babiš is now under investigation in France.” Also, that may be the reason why Babiš put his château up for sale — something that we spotted last summer and wrote about with Pavla. You can find the story here, with a nice video of the mansion, which, according to Babiš, is certainly not a château.
FSB TIES OF RUSSIAN BISHOP IN HUNGARY FLAGGED BY COUNTERINTELLIGENCE
In a previous issue, we (together with Czech news outlet Deník N) published and explained video footage showing Russian Orthodox priest Hilarion practicing with a gun at a shooting range our sources identified as being inside the FSB headquarters on Moscow’s Lubyanka Square. Hilarion — formerly Patriarch Kirill’s number two and later head of the Church’s Hungarian branch before being reprimanded and reassigned to Karlovy Vary — has since denied to the BBC that he ever worked for Russian intelligence. Central European security agencies, however, believe otherwise. A Hungarian government source told me that while Hilarion was stationed in Budapest, security agencies had information linking him to the FSB — the only unresolved question was whether he served as a full-fledged officer or had been recruited as a covert collaborator. The same official also revealed that Hungary’s Constitution Protection Office (AH) advised against granting him Hungarian citizenship in 2022, citing his FSB ties (AH is tasked with carrying out national security screenings).
The warning was ignored by Viktor Orbán’s government. As I previously reported, Hilarion’s citizenship was granted through an expedited process facilitated by Deputy Prime Minister Zsolt Semjén, and shortly afterward, Hilarion’s mother also received citizenship under “family reunification.” While Hungary often extends citizenship to foreign church leaders, disregarding counterintelligence advice is pretty unusual. Since Central European intelligence agencies closely cooperate on Russian matters, information about the security risk posed by Hilarion — despite his newly granted citizenship — was shared among partner agencies, both my Hungarian sources and Deník N journalist Lukáš Prchal’s Czech sources confirmed. Deník N also quoted Jan Paďourek, former deputy head of Czech foreign intelligence, who said that the Russian Orthodox Church’s collaboration with the Kremlin is nothing new: “It was like that in the days of the USSR, when it cooperated with the KGB, and it is like that today.” Semjén’s workplace — the Prime Minister’s Office — did not respond to a new round of requests for comment. However, head of the Prime Minister’s Office Gergely Gulyás said at Thursday’s weekly press conference only that Hilarion had undergone a national security screening — but omitted the fact that the FSB-linked priest had actually failed it.
