According to the investigative site, Zsolt Bodnár became a target when he had to leave the elite police force in 2018.Continue reading
Two former leaders of Hungary’s internal security intelligence agency under the former Ferenc Gyurcsány-led government also appear on the list of targets of Pegasus spyware, according to the most recent report of Direkt36.
The phone numbers of Sándor Laborc, the former Director General of the National Security Office (NBH), and his close colleague, Zoltán Glemba, former head of the NBH’s Operations Department, can also be found on the leaked list of phone numbers that contain the potential surveillance targets of the powerful spyware “Pegasus.”
According to Hungarian investigative and whistleblower platform Direkt36 whose journalists collaborated in the investigation of the surveillance scandal revealed in July, there is no clear reason why Laborc and Glemba were chosen to be surveilled with Pegasus. Both were targeted in the summer of 2019, at the time they claimed to have already been retired from their profession for a decade.
The targets – as Direkt36 points out – led Hungary’s internal security intelligence agency during a politically turbulent time under the former Gyurcsány government. Laborc was appointed head of the NBH in 2007 – less than a year after Ferenc Gyurcsány’s infamous “Őszöd speech” was leaked. The circumstances of the leak were thoroughly investigated by the Hungarian secret services as well.
After Fidesz took power in 2010, Laborc was accused of several criminal offenses, and charges were pressed against him in nine criminal cases. He was later acquitted in eight instances and was found guilty in one, for which he received a fine. Glemba was a suspect in one criminal case and was later also acquitted.
Laborc told Direkt36 that he was not surprised that his phone number had been found in the leaked database containing more than 300 Hungarian mobile phones.
“Since 2010, my activities, with some interruptions, have been constantly under surveillance. After 31 years of learning and practicing this profession, the monitoring, the technical surveillance, can be noticed,” said Laborc, who wonders what else authorities could come up with in 2019, nine years after his retirement, to justify his surveillance.
Laborc claims that his only more regular public activity is that after the second Orbán administration abolished the service and disability pensions, he helped establish an association, together with Glemba, and they have been fighting against the decision ever since.
For months the government never clearly confirmed or denied the purchase and use of the spyware, only emphasizing that all surveillance in Hungary is in-line with the relevant regulations, and authorities observe the rule of law.
The case took a huge turn a little over a week ago when Fidesz MP Lajos Kósa admitted that the Interior Ministry had bought and used the spyware. However, he also stressed that the Israeli software was used legally.
In the featured photo:Sándor Laborc, the former Director General of the National Security Office (NBH). Photo by László Beliczay/MTI
