Zsolt Molnár of the opposition Socialists told a press conference that he would contact Europol through Interior Minister Sándor Pintér, adding that the case in question concerned a number of other European countries.

Molnár noted that he had earlier turned to the interior minister and heads of the national security services, the central bank and the tax office to enquire about the 2012 extradition of Ramil Sahib Safarov and whether it was in any way linked to a transfer of funds to Hungary.

He said authorities were making little progress in their investigations of the case, suggesting that

they could be trying to “sabotage” the investigations. Molnár asked Pintér to forward his report to Europol immediately and to request that Hungarian law enforcement and Europol work together on the case.

He said he would challenge the interior minister, a representative of the Chief Prosecutor’s Office, the governor of the National Bank of Hungary and the economy minister to a TV debate so that they could clear up the details of the case.

On August 31, 2012, Hungary extradited Safarov, an Azeri soldier who was spending a life sentence in Hungary for killing a fellow soldier from Armenia in 2004. Safarov was freed under a presidential pardon immediately after his return to Azerbaijan.

Republished with permission of Hungary Matters, MTI’s daily newsletter.