The former Prime Minister of Hungary, Viktor Orb\u00e1n, may have collaborated with the communist secret services whilst serving in the military in the early 1980s. The former head of the Hungarian government, Mikl\u00f3s N\u00e9meth, stated that he had personally seen three handwritten intelligence reports allegedly signed by Orb\u00e1n. This is detailed in an investigation by journalist Szabolcs P\u00e1ni, published on 5 November on the VSquare platform.<\/p>\n
Mikl\u00f3s N\u00e9meth<\/strong>, who served as Prime Minister of Hungary from 1988 to 1990, set out his testimony in a written statement dated 30 March 2026. According to him, shortly before the first free parliamentary elections in March 1990, the then Minister of Defence Ferenc Karpaty<\/strong> handed him three original handwritten documents bearing signatures which were attributed to To Viktor Orban<\/strong>.<\/p>\n The reports were allegedly compiled whilst Orb\u00e1n was performing his compulsory military service in Zalaegerszeg. They contained observations of other military personnel, including details of their behaviour, political convictions, religious views and personal lives.<\/p>\n At the same time, Nemet admitted that he had been unable to establish with certainty the authorship of the documents. Although the handwriting and signature appeared to him to be similar to Orb\u00e1n\u2019s, no forensic analysis was carried out. The former prime minister returned the reports to the defence minister without keeping any copies for himself.<\/p>\n According to Nemet, in 2013 he tried to find out what had become of the documents. Shortly before his death, Ferenc K\u00e1rp\u00e1ti told him that the documents were being kept at Gezi Stefan\u2019s<\/strong> \u2014 the former head of Hungarian military counter-intelligence, who had undergone training in Moscow within the KGB.<\/p>\n Stefan died in 2009. Journalist Pani Szabolcs<\/strong> It is reported that, the day after his death, documents disappeared from the safe which may have contained compromising material on Hungarian politicians, businesspeople and officials. It has not been possible to establish whether the reports attributed to Orb\u00e1n were among them.<\/p>\n In 2015, the Hungarian publication HVG had already published a military counter-intelligence registration card in which Orb\u00e1n was listed as a \u00abpublic contact\u00bb in 1981\u20131982. However, this entry alone does not prove that he was recruited or passed information to the secret services.<\/p>\n Viktor Orb\u00e1n rejected the allegations, stating that the communist secret services had indeed tried to recruit him whilst he was in the military, but that he had refused to cooperate.<\/p>\n On 3 November, the politician released documents from the communist era relating to himself and his wife, Anik\u00f3 Levai. According to Orb\u00e1n, following a failed attempt to recruit him, the security services began monitoring him, his family and other opposition activists. The politician\u2019s spokesperson, Bertalan Havasi, also dismissed the allegations of espionage as false.<\/p>\nIntelligence documents may have gone missing following the death of the head of counter-intelligence<\/h2>\n
Orb\u00e1n denied having collaborated with the communist secret services<\/h2>\n
Hungary has opened the archives of the communist secret services<\/h2>\n