A court in Buda, in the western area of Budapest, the capital of Hungary, has decreed this Wednesday the provisional imprisonment of the deputy and former minister Miklós Seszták, as he is accused of alleged corruption crimes and of having received bribes amounting to millions.
According to a spokesperson for the court indicated to the digital newspaper Telex, Hungarian justice "had no doubts about the founded suspicion that corruption crimes had been committed," which is why the judge has ordered the arrest of Seszták and has set a preventive detention measure of 30 days, thus giving the green light to the request made by the Asset Recovery Office.
In his resolution, the magistrate justified the precautionary measure in the need to safeguard the process of obtaining evidence, emphasizing that such protection "can only be guaranteed by completely controlling the communication of the accused."
The judicial decision is not final and the defense of the former minister has already filed an appeal against the order. Seszták was the head of the Ministry of National Development from 2014 to 2018, a period that is now under scrutiny by Hungarian courts.
After the resolution became public, the Hungarian Prime Minister, Péter Magyar, pointed out that it is the first time since 1990 that a former member of the Government ends up detained, and emphasized that the deputy of Viktor Orbán's party is listed as a suspect in a bribery case involving 12 billion forints (about 32.7 million euros).