Reported by
Black-masked law enforcement officers escorted Balázs Hankó, a former Hungarian culture minister, into a district court on Thursday, where a judge ordered him held in pretrial detention over allegations that he masterminded the widespread misappropriation of state funds to benefit the party of former Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.
Hankó was taken into custody after Hungary's Parliament voted 139 to 0 on Monday to strip his legislative immunity. Before surrendering to prosecutors later that evening, he spent the day inside the Parliament building surrounded by his family, framing his pending arrest as political persecution.
"My conscience is clear; this is a political show trial," Hankó said in a video broadcast live on Orbán’s Facebook page before walking out alongside relatives and lawmakers from Fidesz, Orbán's right-wing party, which is now in opposition.
Prosecutors allege that Hankó misused 17.3 billion forints (about $53 million) during his concurrent tenure as president of the National Cultural Fund. According to the prosecutor’s office, between September 2025 and March 2026, Hankó and his associates established a "dual decision-making system" that bypassed legal evaluation procedures to distribute public grants across 1,079 separate instances along electoral and political lines.
The investigation was launched after whistleblowers alleged that the cultural fund was secretly channeling state grants to artists and organizations loyal to Fidesz. In one instance, public money was allegedly used to book a circus for a Fidesz campaign rally, which officials registered as a cultural event. Police previously raided offices housing Fidesz’s internet servers in July as part of the inquiry.
The court order marks one of the most high-profile moves yet in a sweeping anti-graft drive led by Prime Minister Péter Magyar, whose administration took power after defeating Orbán and ending his 16 years in office. Magyar has estimated that systemic corruption under the prior government cost Hungary 8 to 10 percent of its gross domestic product. Writing on social media, Magyar declared that "millions of Hungarians had experienced for the first time what true regime change and equality before the law mean."
Fidesz leaders have fiercely denounced the proceedings, accusing Magyar’s government of authoritarian overreach. János Bóka, the leader of the Fidesz parliamentary group, pledged that the party would hold anyone involved in the prosecution answerable "in court, in politics, and in their finances."
The anti-graft inquiry has expanded beyond Hankó. On Monday, authorities also detained Miklós Seszták, who served as national development minister under Orbán from 2014 to 2018, in connection with a separate bribery investigation. Seszták has denied any wrongdoing.
Prosecutors have not formally charged Hankó beyond the initial suspicion of misappropriation, and he has not been convicted of a crime.
Lawmakers also voted to strip Prime Minister Péter Magyar of his immunity in an unrelated case that predates his time in office.
