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Evidence Suggests Budapest City Hall Sale Allegation Was 'Criminal Smear Campaign', Says Mayor

• 29 Nov 2022 7:26 AM
• Hungary Matters

Evidence suggests that the “false” allegation that people close to the metropolitan administration were planning to sell the City Hall building was part of a “criminal smear campaign” aided and abetted by people connected with the government and ruling Fidesz party, Budapest Mayor Gergely Karácsony said, noting that former Prime Minister Gordon Bajnai had posted an official police document on its decision to close down the investigation which, he insisted, indicated that the people responsible for the “smear campaign against him” had “committed a criminal act”.

“The Fidesz-serving media, government members and Fidesz representatives in Budapest entertained themselves and the public with obvious lies for months,” Karácsony said on Facebook.

“Even the police was used for the Fidesz-backed manipulation campaign when they searched City Hall offices and the homes of several colleagues,” he added. “Nobody sold the building and nobody wanted to sell it,” Karácsony said, adding that the allegations were “false”.

Bajnai, who was “dragged into the affair with the help of underhand manipulation”, published the police report showing that manipulated sound recordings had been circulated, which he said qualified as a criminal act.

“What we always suspected has now been stated in an official document: during the smear campaign, government members and Fidesz politicians had been assisting in criminal acts,” he added.

The police decision states that the perpetrators were unidentified but “I have some ideas about where to look for the man who planned and controlled the entire operation,” Karácsony said.

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