Polish tapping leaks about Hungary
June 25th, 2014A conservative blogger thinks the real revelation in the Polish leaks is not a widely publicised obscene remark about Mr Orbán and Mr Putin, but what the CEO of the Polish Oil Corporation had to say about how his Hungarian counterpart is trying to circumvent his corruption trial underway in Croatia.
On Mandiner, legal analyst Bea Bakó interprets the leaked voice recordings as proof that Mr Zsolt Hernádi, the Ceo of MOL, Hungary’s oil multinational is using the Hungarian courts to prevent a sentence for corruption in Croatia. As Budapest has reported over the past three years, a trial is underway against Mr Hernádi in Zagreb where he is charged with bribing former Prime Minister Ivo Sanader into ceasing to MOL the management rights of INA, the Croatian Oil Trust where MOL owns just under 50 per cent of the shares. In a conversation with the Polish Finance Minister, the CEO of the Polish National Oil Company said he had been told by Mr Hernádi that rumours about his manoeuvre were true. Under European Law, in fact member countries recognise the rulings made by each other’s courts. Thus, if the Hungarian Court were to relieve Mr Hernádi of the charges, the Croatians would also have to drop their indictment. The details of the story as interpreted by the Polish top manager were inaccurate on several points, Bakó remarks, but basically he got the story right. That does not mean that Mr Hernádi is guilty, it just shows that he does not trust the Croatian court. He has been in fact declared innocent in the first instance and the case is under appeal. Bakó thinks this is the real story about the Polish leaks, unlike the one that has been trumpeted loud by many newspapers. The same manager was recorded in fact in relating to the Finance Minister his criticism of Mr Viktor Orbán’s recent deals with Vladimir Putin, expressing himself in extremely vulgar terms. Bakó condemns Hungarian blogs like Cink who only consider media outlets “free” if they dared to translate what was said in the recorded conversation as a “blow job” and included that expression into their headlines.