{"id":7507,"date":"2022-01-27T16:04:14","date_gmt":"2022-01-27T15:04:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.direkt36.hu\/?p=7507"},"modified":"2022-10-11T22:20:14","modified_gmt":"2022-10-11T20:20:14","slug":"celba-vettek-pegasusszal-a-fovarosi-valasztasi-bizottsag-tagjat-aki-2018-ban-a-jobbik-kampanyat-segitette","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/direkt36.exot.hu\/en\/celba-vettek-pegasusszal-a-fovarosi-valasztasi-bizottsag-tagjat-aki-2018-ban-a-jobbik-kampanyat-segitette\/","title":{"rendered":"Another Pegasus target with political ties: a lawyer who oversees elections and worked for opposition party Jobbik"},"content":{"rendered":"

L\u00e1szl\u00f3 V\u00e9rtesy\u2019s name is probably not known even to people who closely follow the news, although the lawyer who teaches at the University of Public Service has long been involved in politics. For years, he was a researcher at the pro-government Sz\u00e1zadv\u00e9g Foundation and then did similar work for the opposition party Jobbik before the 2018 parliamentary election. What\u2019s more, since 2014 he has been a member of the Metropolitan Electoral Commission, which oversees the legality of the elections.<\/p>\n

According to Direkt36 investigation, V\u00e9rtesy has also been one of the Hungarian targets of Pegasus spyware. Two phone numbers used by V\u00e9rtesy are part of the leaked database of more than 50,000 numbers containing targets selected for targeting by foreign clients of NSO Group, the Israeli company manufacturing Pegasus. The database was obtained by Forbidden Stories, a Paris-based network of journalists and international human rights organization Amnesty International, and it became the basis of a global investigation of 17 media outlets, including Direkt36 from Hungary.<\/p>\n

V\u00e9rtesy declined to answer our questions, and it wasn\u2019t possible to analyze any of his phones to find out whether they were hacked. However, for other Pegasus targets on the leaked list, forensic analyses have shown in a number of cases that spyware has indeed infected the targets\u2019 devices.<\/p>\n

The database containing the telephone numbers of Pegasus targets does not reveal who used the spyware \u2013 sold exclusively to governments and state agencies \u2013 against Hungarian targets. However, senior Fidesz politician Lajos K\u00f3sa recently publicly acknowledged that the Orb\u00e1n government had acquired and used the Israeli tool. We have previously identified\u00a0journalists, media company owners critical of the government<\/a>,\u00a0opposition politicians<\/a>, as well as\u00a0government<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0national security officials<\/a>\u00a0among the targets.<\/p>\n

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It is not clear why V\u00e9rtesy became a target. His acquaintances interviewed by Direkt36 are not aware of any official investigations against him that could have justified his targeting. Pegasus was directed at him in the early fall of 2018 and based on information from his acquaintances and publicly available data, nothing happened to him at that time that could easily explain why he became a target.<\/p>\n

It is known, however, that he still had politically sensitive roles during that period. V\u00e9rtesy was a member of a Metropolitan Electoral Commission. One the commission\u2019s responsibility is to investigate reports of suspected violations of electoral rules.<\/p>\n

V\u00e9rtesy was first elected to this position in 2014, when the municipality was run by the governing Fidesz party. In August 2019, shortly before the municipal election that was won by the opposition, he was re-elected by the metropolitan assembly. A current municipal source told Direkt36 that V\u00e9rtesy had not joined the board as a party delegate, but at the suggestion of the chief notary working in the Fidesz-led municipality.<\/p>\n

At the time of becoming a target, V\u00e9rtesy was the owner and manager of a company called the Civitas Institute, which helped Jobbik before the parliamentary elections in April 2018. However, according to sources familiar with the party’s affairs, Civitas was no longer active during the Pegasus targeting period, and V\u00e9rtesy did not have a closer relationship with the party.<\/p>\n

However, the timing of the targeting is not necessarily relevant. If V\u00e9rtesy was indeed under surveillance, it is also possible that the users of the spyware wanted information about an earlier period. Pegasus gives access to all information that is already on the phone: emails, messages, photos, videos, and voice recordings from months or years before.<\/p>\n

One of V\u00e9rtesy\u2019s aquintances told Direkt36 that he also did not understand why he might have become a Pegasus target.<\/p>\n

V\u00e9rtesy teaches at the University of Public Service (NKE), which also serves as a recruiting base for the government and state agencies, but his research field is not sensitive from the point of view of national security. He teaches financial and economic law at the Department of Administrative Law. Although current laws allow any employee of NKE to be subjected to so-called \u201cdue diligence\u201d inquiries, in which surveillance techniques can also be used, this rule was only introduced in 2021. So, it was not yet in force when V\u00e9rtesy became a target.<\/p>\n

The government did not respond to Direkt36\u2019s questions about V\u00e9rtesy\u2019s targeting.<\/p>\n

A member of the \u201cinner circle\u201d<\/h2>\n

According to his university CV, V\u00e9rtesy, who studied economics in addition to law, started to work for the pro-government Sz\u00e1zadv\u00e9g Foundation in 2013, but then a few years later he switched to Jobbik, one of the strongest opposition parties back then. According to sources familiar with the internal affairs of the party, this was a period when the previously radical rightwing Jobbik was trying to reposition itself as a more moderate political force and attracted a new group of academics and experts, including V\u00e9rtesy.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the time, it seemed that Jobbik could be the strongest challenger to the government, and that attracted intellectuals to them,\u201d one source explained.<\/p>\n

In the fall of 2017, V\u00e9rtesy founded a company called the Civitas Institute, which organized conferences and other events with the participation of opposition politicians, as well as producing background materials on topics important to the Jobbik. Civitas commissioned the publication of the Black Book of Corruption, a list of the major corruption cases under the Orb\u00e1n government. The report was prepared by the Hungarian branch of Transparency International.<\/p>\n

V\u00e9rtesy was also in close contact with Jobbik’s leadership. \u201cDuring the making of our program, he took part in the discussions as the leader of the Civitas and thus worked as a member of the campaign team,\u201d said J\u00e1nos Volner, the party\u2019s former vice president, who has since left Jobbik and became one of its harshest critics.<\/p>\n

Other sources from Jobbik also confirmed that V\u00e9rtesy was involved in the campaign work, and some noted that he would have been expected to work for the government in case of an election victory. V\u00e9rtesy also appeared a few times at a series of events organized by the newspaper Magyar Nemzet, owned by oligarch Lajos Simicska at the time, where, politicians from Jobbik and other opposition parties discussed strategies about how to defeat Fidesz.<\/p>\n

The defeat in the 2018 election eventually plunged Jobbik into a serious crisis. President G\u00e1bor Vona resigned first, and in the following months several other former leading politicians of the party also left. The infighting continued even in the fall, when V\u00e9rtesy became a Pegasus target. According to sources in Jobbik, however, V\u00e9rtesy was no longer active within the party. “As far as I can recall, V\u00e9rtesy was not visible near the party after the election,” Volner said.<\/p>\n

According to those familiar with the party’s affairs, the Civitas Institute, which was owned and run by V\u00e9rtesy until October 2020, was no longer active during this period either. (The institute was revived for the upcoming elections in April 2022. It is organizing events and has been working with Transparency International on a new updated edition of the Black Book on Corruption.)<\/p>\n

One of V\u00e9rtesy’s acquaintances told Direkt36 that the lawyer probably regretted helping Jobbik. A source requesting anonymity said he had met the lawyer several times before the 2018 election, and V\u00e9rtesy \u201csuggested that this was an opposition activity\u201d that could have a damaging effect on his later career. V\u00e9rtesy’s official CV on the NKE’s website<\/a> does not even say that he ever had anything to do with the Civitas Institute.<\/p>\n

After the lawyer’s departure, the new owner of Civitas Institute became Levente Nagy-P\u00e1l, one of the assistants of Jobbik politician M\u00e1rton Gy\u00f6ngy\u00f6si, a Member of the European Parliament. One of the directors of the institute is Zolt\u00e1n K\u00e9sz, a former member of parliament and one of the close political allies of the opposition\u2019s prime minister-candidate P\u00e9ter M\u00e1rki-Zay.<\/p>\n

Opposition targets<\/h2>\n

Direkt36 has previously revealed that there were several opposition-linked individuals targeted by Pegasus spyware.<\/p>\n

Before the 2018 elections, the targets also included the son of oligarch Lajos Simicska, who supported Jobbik at the time, and one of the oligarch\u2019s closest confidants. At the end of 2018, Gy\u00f6rgy G\u00e9mesi, the opposition mayor of G\u00f6d\u00f6ll\u0151, appeared among the targets. Last year, Zolt\u00e1n P\u00e1va, the publisher of an opposition website was surveilled with Pegasus. His surveillance started when it became public that he was advising the opposition party Democratic Coalition led by former prime minister Ferenc Gyurcs\u00e1ny.<\/p>\n

The government has not commented on any of the cases and did not acknowledge that they had anything to do with these people becoming targets. However, Gergely Guly\u00e1s, the head of the Prime Minister’s Office, once stated that some of the press reports on Pegasus surveillance had factual basis. However, he did not specify which cases he was referring to.<\/p>\n

Cover picture: szarvas \/ Telex<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

L\u00e1szl\u00f3 V\u00e9rtesy was targeted in the fall of 2018 when he was still the owner and director of an institute that had helped opposition party Jobbik in the last parliamentary election campaign.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":7508,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[156,274],"ppma_author":[440],"class_list":["post-7507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-megfigyelesek","tag-jobbik","tag-pegasus","author-petho-andras"],"authors":[{"term_id":440,"user_id":4,"is_guest":0,"slug":"petho-andras","display_name":"Andr\u00e1s Peth\u0151","avatar_url":{"url":"https:\/\/direkt36.exot.hu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/av_Peto_Andras.png","url2x":"https:\/\/direkt36.exot.hu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/av_Peto_Andras.png"},"description":"[:hu]Andr\u00e1s a Direkt36 egyik alap\u00edt\u00f3ja, szerkeszt\u0151je \u00e9s \u00fcgyvezet\u0151 igazgat\u00f3ja. Kor\u00e1bban az Origo vezet\u0151 szerkeszt\u0151je volt, miel\u0151tt a port\u00e1l r\u00e9sze lett a korm\u00e1ny propagandag\u00e9pezet\u00e9nek. Andr\u00e1s dolgozott a BBC World Service-n\u00e9l Londonban \u00e9s a Washington Post t\u00e9nyfelt\u00e1r\u00f3 rovat\u00e1n\u00e1l is. R\u00e9szt vett sz\u00e1mos nagy nemzetk\u00f6zi nyomoz\u00f3 projektben, k\u00f6zt\u00fck a Panama-iratok feldolgoz\u00e1s\u00e1ban. K\u00e9tszer is elnyerte a legjobbnak \u00edt\u00e9lt t\u00e9nyfelt\u00e1r\u00f3 cikkek szerz\u0151inek j\u00e1r\u00f3 Soma-d\u00edjat. T\u00f6bbsz\u00f6r tanult \u00f6szt\u00f6nd\u00edjjal az Egyes\u00fclt \u00c1llamokban: 2008-ban a World Press Institute programj\u00e1ban, 2012-13-ban Humphrey-\u00f6szt\u00f6nd\u00edjask\u00e9nt a Marylandi Egyetemen, 2019-20-ban pedig Nieman-\u00f6szt\u00f6nd\u00edjask\u00e9nt a Harvard Egyetemen. Andr\u00e1s t\u00f6bb magyar egyetemen is tan\u00edtott \u00fajs\u00e1g\u00edr\u00f3 kurzusokat.\r\n[:en]Andr\u00e1s is a co-founder, editor and executive director of Direkt36. Previously, he was a senior editor for leading Hungarian news site Origo before it had been transformed into the government\u2019s propaganda outlet. He also worked for the BBC World Service in London and was a reporter at the investigative unit of The Washington Post. He has contributed to several international reporting projects, including The Panama Papers. He twice won the Soma Prize, the prestigious annual award dedicated to investigative journalism in Hungary. He was a World Press Institute fellow in 2008, a Humphrey fellow at the University of Maryland in 2012\/13, and a Nieman fellow at Harvard University in 2019\/20. Andr\u00e1s has taught journalism courses at Hungarian universities.[:]","first_name":"Andr\u00e1s","last_name":"Peth\u0151","user_url":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/direkt36.exot.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/direkt36.exot.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/direkt36.exot.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/direkt36.exot.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/direkt36.exot.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7507"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/direkt36.exot.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7507\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9412,"href":"https:\/\/direkt36.exot.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7507\/revisions\/9412"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/direkt36.exot.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7508"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/direkt36.exot.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/direkt36.exot.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/direkt36.exot.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7507"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/direkt36.exot.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=7507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}