For­eign Min­istry: Kale­ta Case Clas­si­fied Due to Intel­li­gence Chief’s Report

The Par­lia­men­tary report of Gábor Kaleta’s pedophile case has been sealed for 10 years. The for­eign min­istry that dis­closed the infor­ma­tion says they can­not ful­ly declas­si­fy it because the doc­u­ments con­tain a report from a mem­ber of the secret ser­vice. Accord­ing to For­eign Min­is­ter Péter Szi­jjártó, they have already made every­thing that was pos­si­ble public.

“There is noth­ing to hide in the mat­ter as far as the law allows it, we have always made every­thing pub­lic and will con­tin­ue to make it pub­lic,” the For­eign Min­is­ter told pub­lic broad­cast­er RTL Klub when asked about the clas­si­fi­ca­tion of the par­lia­men­tary com­mit­tee meet­ing on the pedophile case of for­mer diplo­mat Gábor Kaleta.

“I imme­di­ate­ly fired this man from the min­istry once the out­ra­geous actions he had done came to light,” Péter Szi­jjártó added.

Dur­ing the committee’s Feb­ru­ary meet­ing, Sec­re­tary of State Tamás Mencz­er, the Infor­ma­tion Office, and the Hun­gar­i­an State Police (ORFK) all shared details about the inci­dent. Then the report and the min­utes of the meet­ing have been sealed for the next ten years.

In their writ­ten answer to RTL Klub, the min­istry lat­er argued that the doc­u­ments were clas­si­fied because an intel­li­gence chief was present. Although the For­eign Min­istry could ini­ti­ate the declas­si­fi­ca­tion of the infor­ma­tion, accord­ing to RTL Klub, the details of the secret ser­vice action would still remain confidential.

Last week, oppo­si­tion LMP law­mak­er Már­ta Deme­ter asked Zsolt Németh, the Fidesz chair­man of the parliament’s for­eign affairs com­mit­tee, in a let­ter to declas­si­fy the committee’s Feb­ru­ary meeting.

Lat­er, Németh was also asked about the sub­ject by news site Index and he gave the same answer as the For­eign Min­istry did.

“When we lis­ten to mem­bers of the secret ser­vices, in most cas­es the meet­ings are con­fi­den­tial,” the politi­cian said.

He also revealed that the Min­istry of For­eign Affairs han­dled the infor­ma­tion in this case, not the For­eign Affairs Com­mit­tee. There­fore, it is their deci­sion to declas­si­fy it.

PMO Head: secret ser­vices were late find­ing out Kale­ta case

On Tues­day, in Par­lia­ment, Min­is­ter Gerge­ly Gulyás admit­ted that secret ser­vices were late in find­ing out that Kale­ta had child pornog­ra­phy pic­tures, even though the diplo­mat, due to his sta­tus, had under­gone sev­er­al nation­al secu­ri­ty screenings.

Gulyás said that they would inves­ti­gate whether there had been any omis­sions in Gábor Kaleta’s nation­al secu­ri­ty screenings.

He also not­ed that there is a need to adopt a com­pre­hen­sive fam­i­ly and child pro­tec­tion pack­age and a strength­en­ing of the Penal Code. He said the gov­ern­ment is ready for that.

Ex-diplo­mat Kale­ta, who before his embassy posi­tion also served as spokesman for the Min­istry of Jus­tice, was brought to Hun­gary in com­plete secre­cy last spring, after more than 19,000 under-18 pornog­ra­phy pho­tos had been found on his elec­tron­ic devices amid an inter­na­tion­al oper­a­tion. It was gov­ern­ment-crit­i­cal news site Index that broke the sto­ry months lat­er. The pros­e­cu­tion filed charges against Kale­ta in Novem­ber 2019.

Lat­er, the par­lia­men­tary report of his case was sealed for ten years. Two weeks ago, he plead­ed guilty to the child pornog­ra­phy charges and was hand­ed a one year sus­pend­ed prison sen­tence and ordered to pay a HUF 540,000 fine. Many found the rul­ing extreme­ly lenient, and it has remained a much debat­ed issue in Hungary.

Fea­tured pho­to by Szilárd Koszticsák/MTI 

Source: hun​gary​to​day​.com