HUNGARY / FINLAND: Hungary says foreign organised crime gangs are planning to launch bomb attacks at election campaign rallies

Record ID: 357949

  • Title: HUNGARY / FINLAND: Hungary says foreign organised crime gangs are planning to launch bomb attacks at election campaign rallies
  • Date: 30th March 2006
  • Summary: WIDE SHOT PRIME MINISTER FERENC GYURCSANY CONTINUING DISCUSSIONS WITH INTERIOR MINISTER AND OFFICIALS; DOOR CLOSING ON MEETING WHILE PRIME MINISTER CONTINUES DISCUSSION
  • Embargoed: 14th April 2006 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: Crime / Law Enforcement,Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA3TWEDACPY15OLO4LLQADP4M2Z
  • Story Text: Following the announcement on Tuesday (March 28, 2006) that a foreign organised crime gang is planning to launch bomb attacks at election campaign rallies, Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany called a closed meeting of police chiefs and the interior ministers this morning.
    Gyurcsany said on Tuesday that Hungarian secret services had received the information about the attacks from another European Union member state, but he did not say which. Hungary's biggest daily Nepszabadsag said the information came from secret services in neighbouring Slovakia.
    Nepszabadsag, citing unnamed Bratislava sources, said that the Slovak Intelligence Services (SIS) had gained information from circles associated with organised crime in Dunajska Streda, a small town along the river Danube in Slovakia, and attributed the plans to three people normally active in Croatia but who also frequently operate in Hungary.
    It is understood by SIS that the possible target of such explosions would be to disrupt Hungary's public life and those in power, said the sources.
    The prime minister said on Tuesday that those planning the attacks were three members of a well-known organised crime group. He said Hungarian secret services had been officially informed that foreign criminal groups, with the aim of destabilising Hungary's political situation, intend to carry out explosions.
    Gyurcsany said the source of the information was checked and proved to be "reliable and controlled", and police will step up security at the rallies. Border controls will also be tightened.
    After this morning's closed meeting with police chiefs the prime minister said that the reports refer to all campaign rallies not just to the ones due to be held this weekend.
    "The threats and the threatening relate to the events of the campaign. The use of English words is not entirely accurate so I have to make the conclusion that it relates not to one particular rally but in general to all rallies of the forthcoming period, but of course the two large rallies of this weekend are prominent in this respect," he said.
    He stressed that people should not be concerned as police would ensure the security of rallies with extra checks and security measures.
    "I encourage everyone to gather calmly, to express opinions and practice the right of freedom calmly. And I can say that on the basis of the reports and briefings I received I do not see a reason to discourage any citizen of Hungary from practising their rights of freedom," Gyurcsany said.
    Travelling in Finland, the Hungarian president, Lazlo Solyom said he had received a call from Gyurcsany on Tuesday (March 28).
    "I cannot estimate from this distance the real weight of this threat...I cannot estimate what was the real motive of this threat as I know it is the mafia from Slovakia who organised these attacks. The Prime Minister assured me that he had checked the (unintelligible) and the circumstances of this planned attack and he would know who are the persons concerned," he said.
    Before and after a parliamentary election in 1998, small bombs exploded at the homes of one Fidesz politician and a member of the rightwing Smallholders party and at Fidesz party headquarters in Budapest.
    No one was hurt in those attacks which were linked to Slovak organised crime, though a bomb went off in central Budapest, killing four and injuring several people in July 1998.
    According to Hungarian news agency reports, the police identified a Slovak gang led by Jozef Rohac as responsible for all the attacks but has not been able to apprehend it.
    Support for the ruling Socialists and main conservative opposition Fidesz party has shown the two parties in a close race in the first round of the election on April 9. The Socialists said they would go ahead with their rally on Saturday (April 1) and Fidesz will also hold its rally on Sunday (April 2).
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