Hungarian authorities that seized a Ukrainian gold convoy and briefly detained its escorts ahead of the election that unseated Viktor Orban acted on their own initiative, the former prime minister said, denying responsibility for the raid.
The March incident, in which Hungarian anti-terror police descended on a routine consignment of cash and bullion in transit from Austria to stock Ukraine’s banking system, came near the end of a campaign in which Orban cast Ukraine as a hostile power bent on roping Budapest into its war against Russia.
A former senior prosecutor wrote in September that a political order had been given for the raid. Multiple local media have reported that Orban himself gave the order, which fit his Fidesz party’s campaign narrative about a lawless and dangerous neighbor to Hungary’s east. Such orders, if given, could give rise to criminal liability.
“They acted on their own authority,” Orban wrote in a Facebook post of the law enforcement bodies involved in the raid, repeating, without evidence, an assertion that the convoy had been illicit.
“If it had been necessary, I would have given the order,” he said, adding that the officials involved “deserve recognition and reward for their work.”
Hungarian authorities initially billed the raid as an anti-money-laundering and anti-terrorism operation, but both the cash and the detainees were quickly released and returned to Ukraine.
Read more: Orban’s Ex-Bodyguard Questioned on Ukraine Money Convoy Grab
Since Orban’s defeat, authorities have questioned Janos Hajdu, Hungary’s antiterrorism chief at the time and a long-time Orban ally, as a suspect in what meanwhile became a case relating to the unlawful detention of the convoy’s escorts.
The news website telex.hu this week reported that three rank-and-file police officers had also been questioned.
After the new government sacked him, Hajdu returned to the job he held before Orban became prime minister 16 years ago: that of his party’s security chief.