Former MSZP politician may avoid imprisonment

A conservative columnist contends that although former MSZP Vice President Gábor Simon, currently under investigation for undeclared assets, may avoid imprisonment, voters will not acquit the Socialists of corruption charges.

In Napi Gazdaság, Pál Swendt suspects that Gábor Simon may get away with a very soft sentence and may even avoid imprisonment altogether. The former MSZP Vice President has paid income tax on the hundreds of millions of undeclared forints kept on secret bank accounts (see BudaPost February 6, 2014). Mr Simon refused to reveal the source of the money, and the police also failed to find this out. According to newspaper reports, Mr Simon thus may be accused of only minor crimes like identity document forgery, and thus avoid imprisonment. Under Hungarian law, he can even keep the money found on his secret bank accounts. But even if Gábor Simon cannot be imprisoned, Swendt believes neither he nor the Socialist party will be cleared of public suspicion of large-scale corruption. Until the source of the money is clarified, Hungarians will suspect that Mr Simon deposited on his bank account secret MSZP funds Swendt concludes.

Tags: corruption, MSZP, Simon