A Serious National Security Risk
One of Peter Magyar's biggest and most dangerous lies was his claim that the plane of the fallen Syrian dictator, Bashar al-Assad, landed in Hungary. The outlet Magyar Hang even released a photo supposedly showing the Syrian ex-president’s arrival in Budapest, but it quickly turned out to be false: a 12-year-old photo used to deceive readers. Despite this, the post with the fake news remained on Peter Magyar’s Facebook page for a long time afterward.
Peter Magyar didn’t back down on Klubradio either, maintaining his usual tone and insisting he had no reason to apologize.
The leader of the Tisza Party continued spreading this misinformation on ATV, arguing on the show Egyenes Beszed (Straight Talk) that the government had not yet officially denied Bashar al-Assad’s arrival in Hungary. Due to this spreading of false information, the Constitution Protection Office launched an investigation, and the National Assembly's security committee held a session involving civilian intelligence agencies. The false claim was deemed a serious risk to national security.
Peter Magyar Lied About Insider Trading Too
In early February, Index broke the story of Peter Magyar’s stock scandal. The outlet reported that on Friday, July 21, 2023, after the market had closed, Opus Global Nyrt. announced a stock buyback program, which significantly boosted the share price. On that same day at 3:00 pm, that is, before the stock exchange closed and before the buyback announcement, Peter Magyar sold all his other shares and purchased Opus stock worth tens of millions of forints.
According to the article, the following Monday, after the stock market opened, Magyar sold these shares at a higher price, making a sizable profit of several million forints.
Importantly, at the time, Magyar was a member of the supervisory board of MBH, a bank linked to Lorinc Meszaros, and Opus is also one of Meszaros’s companies.
Magyar responded to the article by claiming that not a word of the Index report was true and stated he had neither bought nor sold any shares on the date mentioned.
Magyar Nemzet reported that the president of the Tisza Party tried to wriggle out of the situation using a peculiar trick, claiming the transaction was recorded the following week, meaning he could not have purchased the shares on Friday. In other words, it could not have been insider trading. However, on the stock exchange, transactions are not recorded instantly—they’re often logged later. Thus, it's quite possible that Friday's purchase was registered at a later time.