Judit Varga – Photo: BZT / Nóra Halász

Former justice minister accuses ex-husband of ‘blackmail, terrorising’

"Peter Magyar has blackmailed and terrorised me," Judit Varga, the former justice minister, said on Facebook on Tuesday, referring to her ex-husband who today published a recording of a conversation between them which he made secretly in their family home.

“Shocking. Peter Magyar has now done it. He has been blackmailing me with that for a year,” Varga said, noting that Magyar had secretly recorded the conversation between them when she was justice minister.

Magyar alleges that the contents of the recording provide evidence of government wrongdoing.

“And now he has used it for political purposes,” Varga said. “A person like that is not worthy of any kind of trust,” she added.

Varga also said she had given him “a number of chances to start over during the terrible years of domestic violence”.

Referring to an interview to camera that Magyar gave which was streamed online on Monday, Varga said: “I was just watching that cruel face … and I was chilled to the bone; he lies and manipulates, and it brings back everything I had to endure over the past 16 years.” She added that she could recall “plenty of examples of verbal and physical violence”.

Varga recalled one evening when she had gone to bed her husband came home in a drunken state and threw books and clothing at her. “I felt the buckle of his belt hitting my back. I tried to crouch smaller and waited for the next blow; I was afraid that it would hit my spine, but I didn’t dare move.”

“At that time I decided that I would divorce him,” she said, adding that when she told him, “he begged me and made promises as he had done so many time for 16 years… He used all the old tricks and methods through which he had always managed to put me back on the rollercoaster of domestic violence … but this time I was determined to find a way out.”

She said Magyar had started threatening her when she insisted on a divorce. “This was the context for this footage… He was preparing to blackmail me. He was provoking me by reading out gossip from the press.” “Since he had been terrorising me for days, I told him what he wanted to hear so that I could get away as soon as possible… In a state of intimidation people say things they do not mean,” the former minister added.

Varga said she was “proud” of having been the justice minister of the government led by Viktor Orban and of being a member of the ruling Fidesz party.

She said that according to Magyar she was being discredited in the press. “I see it differently. Former colleagues and close friends tell us who he really is. Peter Magyar has caused much pain not only to his own family but also to his friends… Now having to watch this vile manipulation causes renewed pain for many,” she wrote.

The Central Investigation Prosecutor’s Office (KNYF) said in the afternoon that Magyar had been heard again as a witness by the Metropolitan Investigation Prosecutor’s Office in an ongoing criminal case.

Prior to the interview, Magyar made public a recording of a private conversation he had with his ex-wife.

The office acknowledged as correct a statement in the recording that Chief Public Prosecutor Peter Polt did not lord over the prosecutor’s office. “The chief public prosecutor heads and manages Hungary’s public prosecutor’s office where the rule of law is in force,” it added.

The prosecutor’s office will analyse, assess and further verify all statements made in the recording and during the testimony by Magyar, it said in a statement.

“It must be pointed out again that the disappearance or revision of documents at the prosecutor’s office is not just legally, but also physically, impossible” the statement said. “All data processed at the office is documented from the time of receipt and is not stored in a single location, but appear in the databases of other organisations, including those of investigating judges and authorities involved in covert operations,” it added.

“The history of all the documents pertaining to the so-called Volner-Schadl case is known and all of the activities revealed from the available data have been or are being investigated, in line with the law,” it said.

The authority said it would provide further details at a press conference on March 28.

Gulyas on Magyar: ‘The balloon has burst’

Gergely Gulyas, the head of the prime minister’s office, responding on Tuesday to allegations made by one-time government insider, Peter Magyar, who has turned against the Fidesz-led administration, dismissed Magyar as “the new Marki-Zay”, the one-time prime ministerial candidate of the joint opposition.

“The only difference is that Peter Marki-Zay did not terrorise his wife,” Gulyas said in a Facebook post.

“Much ado about nothing,” he wrote, adding that “the balloon has burst!”

“A family dispute involving an intimidated wife doesn’t have a bearing on public life,” he added.

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