TAPPED PHONE RECORDS PULPED

The National Security Office annihilated the documents of Attila Kulcsár’s phone calls.

Referring to inner regulations of handling documents the National Security Office has annihilated the documents which contained Attila Kulcsár’s earlier phone calls recorded after the broker scandal had broken out, Magyar Nemzet has been informed. The fact of the pulping of 595 records was revealed in the secret parliamentary session of the national security committee when the opposition wanted to know the fate of the documents.

The parliamentary committee discussed the work of the National Security Office yesterday when it turned out that András Tóth, state secretary of national security knew about the pulping. It was after June 16, 2003 when Prime Minister Péter Medgyessy – just after the assault of Károly Szász, President of the State Supervision of Financial Organizations – requested the National Security Office to start a secret investigation and the special branch recorded 595 phone calls between suspects of the broker scandal. Some of the records have become public and it turned out that Attila Kulcsár and Miklós Bitvai, head of the National Motorway Management Company expected help from a certain ’Gyurcsányi’ but there was a certain ’greatest man’ also mentioned who received later the head of the company to patch up the problem.

András Tóth, state secretary of national security then issued a communiqué claiming that Ferenc Gyurcsány, then Minister of Youth and Sports Affairs had no connection with Attila Kulcsár, though this was refuted by the confession of the director general of Altus Company. Mrs György Jagiellowitz said: It was Mr Ferenc Gyurcsány who sent to me Attila Kulcsár as he was not involved in the affairs of Altus Company at that time.’ The opposition members of the committee wanted to see the records but the National Security Office gave no permission for that, ordered by András Tóth. The MPs sued the Office but they lost the lawsuit because at the time of the ruling the ’broker committee’ already ceased to function.

Translated by Péter Szentmihályi Szabó