Novak – an ally of right-wing nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban – said it had been decided to suspend the prison sentences of Hunnia members. According to a broadcast from the Sandor Palace, the Pope’s visit to Hungary is a special occasion for the head of state to exercise his right of amnesty.
The opposition sees it differently: the pardon is another gesture by Prime Minister Orban’s governing party FIDESZ to right-wing voters and a legitimization of right-wing terror. The opposition leader and former Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany condemned the government’s decision on Facebook as “crazy and dishonest”. One victim of Budahazy’s Hunnia group, Sandor Csintalan, called it “sacrilegious” to use the pope as a reason for such an “immoral and scandalous” decision. The president is making Budahazy “a national hero, a kind of Robin Hood”.
Arson attacks on party offices and politicians’ houses
Budahazy, the leader of far-right groups, had been convicted of terrorism, assault and coercion. Between 2007 and 2009, he and other right-wing extremists from his groups carried out numerous arson attacks on the houses of politicians and on party offices with the terrorist organization Pfeile der Hungary or Hunnia movement, which he founded.
Plans to attack the homes of three members of parliament using bombs hidden in footballs were foiled by the police in 2009. Budahazy demanded a Greater Hungary as in the pre-1920 borders.
Riots and riots at sentencing
Budahazy was sentenced to 13 years in prison in 2016 for terrorist actions. Many of his supporters attended the first pronouncement of the verdict. Towards the end of the trial, riots broke out, with Budahazy’s supporters calling the judge a “murderer” and a “blood judge”. She then had the room cleared by the police.
Both the prosecutor’s office and Budahazy’s defense attorney appealed against the first-instance verdict of 2016. In 2018, the sentence was overturned by a Budapest court and a new trial was launched, in which Budahazy was sentenced to 17 years in prison in March 2022 in the first instance. This year the second instance sentence was reduced to six years.
Since the sentence already served was counted, he should have spent another two to two and a half years in prison, according to his lawyer in Hungarian media, according to the website Telex.hu.
Rode away on the horse
According to Hungarian media, relatives, friends and supporters were waiting in front of a prison near Budapest for Budahazy’s release. According to the media, they also brought a horse with them. Budahazy came out of prison smiling and with a bag on his back, Telex.hu said.
Then he mounted the horse – a symbol of Hungary’s rebellious past for right-wing extremists – raised his fist, shouted “freedom” and rode to the nearest pub, as reported by the Hungarian broadcaster Klubradio. On Sunday, on the occasion of Pope Francis’ mass on Kossuth Square in Budapest, he wanted to express his gratitude to the Pope for traveling to Hungary and thus making his pardon possible, Budahazy said.
Connection to Jobbik
Budahazy was also close to the far-right Jobbik party. But Jobbik changed from a right-wing extremist party to a more national-conservative oriented party. In the 2000s, the movement for a better Hungary, with the later banned Hungarian Guard, was still marching through Roma villages and was openly racist and anti-Semitic.
Before the 2018 general election, however, the party leadership at the time began to swing in a more moderate-conservative direction. After the disappointing electoral performance and the secession of the more extremist wing, Peter Jakab took over leadership of the crisis-ridden party in early 2020.
Far-right secession
Jakab consistently continued Jobbik’s moderate-conservative line. He also did not hide the fact that he has Jewish ancestors – a few years earlier this would have been unthinkable in the Jobbik management. In the last election in 2022, Jobbik and Jakab lost many voters. They defected in droves to the right-wing extremist split from Jobbik, Mi Hazank (Unsere Heimat), it was said after the parliamentary elections.
