{"id":908,"date":"2015-05-19T09:03:55","date_gmt":"2015-05-19T07:03:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.direkt36.hu\/?p=908"},"modified":"2022-10-11T23:36:03","modified_gmt":"2022-10-11T21:36:03","slug":"amit-tudunk-lazar-janos-rejtelyes-utazasairol-es-amit-nem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/direkt36.exot.hu\/en\/amit-tudunk-lazar-janos-rejtelyes-utazasairol-es-amit-nem\/","title":{"rendered":"What we know about J\u00e1nos L\u00e1z\u00e1r\u2019s mysterious trips (and what we don\u2019t)"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

J\u00e1nos L\u00e1z\u00e1r, head of the Prime Minister\u2019s Office, had three foreign trips in the previous term of the government which were remarkable for two reasons. The hotel bills were unusually high and what happened on the trips was covered with a lot of secrecy.<\/p>\n

A public information lawsuit launched by a reporter of Direkt36 (with the legal assistance of Transparency International), however, produced some details.<\/p>\n

What we know<\/h2>\n

Where did Mr. L\u00e1z\u00e1r travel and when?<\/strong> England – November 27-29, 2012; Switzerland – March 22-23, 2013; Italy \u2013 July 26-27, 2013.<\/p>\n

How much were the hotel bills?<\/strong> England: 920.019 HUF (EUR 3.000), Italy: 582.000 HUF (EUR 1.900), Switzerland: there is some confusion here because the Prime Minister\u2019s Office originally said that he hotel bill was 469.878 HUF (EUR 1.535) but now, more than a year later, they claim that it was 189.478 HUF (EUR 619). We asked for clarification but they have not responded yet.<\/p>\n

Why do these numbers appear high?<\/strong> The 2012-2013 travel figures of the Prime Minister\u2019s Office show that hotel bills of officials in the same position as L\u00e1z\u00e1r did not even come close to the hotel expenses of these three trips.<\/p>\n

How many nights?<\/strong> J\u00e1nos L\u00e1z\u00e1r spent 2 nights in England and 1 night both in Switzerland and Italy. This means that altogether it took 4 nights to produce hotel bills worth nearly 2 million HUF or EUR 6.535 (based on the original figures of the Prime Minister\u2019s Office).<\/p>\n

How many people travelled?<\/strong> Initially, the Prime Minister\u2019s Office tried to dismiss the questions by saying that the hotel bills covered a whole delegation\u2019s expenses. Later they revealed, however, that the delegations had only two members on each trip: J\u00e1nos L\u00e1z\u00e1r and one of his aides. The hotel bills appear extraordinarily high compared to other officials\u2019 trips even with counting two travellers.<\/p>\n

Who was L\u00e1z\u00e1r travelling with?<\/strong>\u00a0Last September, L\u00e1z\u00e1r told Index<\/a> that he was accompanied on the trips by either Zsigmond Per\u00e9nyi or Bal\u00e1zs Sonkodi, both of whom are working for him at the Prime Minister\u2019s Office. L\u00e1z\u00e1r said that they were helping him as interpreters.<\/p>\n

What happened on these trips?<\/strong> Of the visit to Switzerland, the Prime Minister\u2019s Office said that L\u00e1z\u00e1r had \u201ea meeting with a German citizen over the German-Hungarian and the Hungarian-Russian relations\u201d. Of the trip to Italy, the office said that L\u00e1z\u00e1r had talks with a partner about \u201e the Hungarian assets that were moved to Switzerland illegally\u201d. Of his visit to England, L\u00e1z\u00e1r said in an interview that he went there to meet his \u201ecounterpart in intelligence\u201d.<\/p>\n

What we don\u2019t know<\/h2>\n

Where did L\u00e1z\u00e1r stay?<\/strong> Although a legally binding court decision forced the Prime Minister\u2019s Office to disclose the names of the hotel, this has not happened yet. The office turned to Curia, the supreme court of Hungary, for a legal review. L\u00e1z\u00e1r had suggested that he would do everyting he can to keep the hotel names secret. In his interview with Index last September, he said that that the hotel names \u201ecan not be revealed\u201d.<\/p>\n

Who did L\u00e1z\u00e1r meet?<\/strong> The Prime Minister\u2019s Office and J\u00e1nos L\u00e1z\u00e1r has declined to disclose this, arguing that revealing these details would hurt national security. During the lawsuit they acknowledged, however, that only the details of the England trip were recorded in a secret document but the Swiss and Italian visits do no have similar protection. According to a recent court decision<\/a>, the Prime Minister\u2019s Office has to disclose the details of the meetings (the names of the officials L\u00e1z\u00e1r met and the subjects they discussed) on these two trips. The court ruling is not legally binding yet.<\/p>\n

<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Prime Minister’s Office has been guarding closely the details of the trips which initially drew attention because of high hotel bills but a yearlong lawsuit shed some light on them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":1399,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[440],"class_list":["post-908","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lazar-janos-utazasai","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\/908","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=908"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/direkt36.exot.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/908\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9146,"href":"https:\/\/direkt36.exot.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/908\/revisions\/9146"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/direkt36.exot.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/direkt36.exot.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/direkt36.exot.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/direkt36.exot.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=908"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/direkt36.exot.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}