{"id":9830,"date":"2022-03-22T14:04:25","date_gmt":"2022-03-22T13:04:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.direkt36.hu\/?p=7696"},"modified":"2022-03-22T14:04:25","modified_gmt":"2022-03-22T13:04:25","slug":"pegasusszal-celoztak-meg-a-volt-pekingi-nagykovetet-aki-nem-sokkal-kesobb-bekerult-orban-tanacsadoi-korebe-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/direkt36.exot.hu\/en\/pegasusszal-celoztak-meg-a-volt-pekingi-nagykovetet-aki-nem-sokkal-kesobb-bekerult-orban-tanacsadoi-korebe-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Pegasusszal c\u00e9lozt\u00e1k meg a volt pekingi nagyk\u00f6vetet, aki nem sokkal k\u00e9s\u0151bb beker\u00fclt Orb\u00e1n tan\u00e1csad\u00f3i k\u00f6r\u00e9be"},"content":{"rendered":"

Translation by Andrea Horv\u00e1th K\u00e1vai<\/em><\/p>\n

The phone number of former Hungarian ambassador to Beijing, Cec\u00edlia Szilas, who is now a person of trust to the Hungarian government, was also targeted with the Pegasus spyware program \u2013 Direkt36 has found out. Szilas\u2019s phone was targeted with the Israeli spyware during the brief season of her working at the conflict-ridden company called Dunaferr, shortly before Viktor Orb\u00e1n hired her as a Senior Advisor to the Prime Minister on China.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

She filled this position of trust between 2019 and 2021, during which time she not only helped prepare Orb\u00e1n for his meetings, but for example, attended negotiations with the leaders of the Shanghai-based Fudan University.<\/p>\n

She is not the first government employee to have been targeted with the spyware. Direkt36 had previously reported that in addition to independent journalists, media company owners critical of the government<\/a> and opposition politicians, people close to the government were also targeted with this technology. The targets include former State Secretaries Bal\u00e1zs Weingartner<\/a> and Attila Asz\u00f3di<\/a>, Zsolt Bodn\u00e1r, deputy head of the Counter Terrorism Centre<\/a>, as well as the leaders of President J\u00e1nos \u00c1der\u2019s personal protective detail<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have nothing to say about this. My life is an open book\u201d \u2013 responded Szilas when Direkt36 phoned her to request a comment about why she might have become a target. When asked if it\u2019s possible that she was targeted with the spyware due to a highly penetrating background check, she responded by saying that she thinks it\u2019s possible. However, she did not respond to our follow-up questions, such as when she had last undergone national security screening, or when she was offered the position of Senior Advisor.<\/p>\n

We found Cec\u00edlia Szilas\u2019 phone number in the database which includes around 50 thousand phone numbers from across the world, of which more than 300 are Hungarian. These are numbers which were chosen to be targeted, but it is not clear whether Szilas\u2019 number was successfully hacked with Pegasus and whether she was actually under surveillance. This can only be determined by examining her phone, which we were unable to do.<\/p>\n

The former Senior Advisor first became a Pegasus-target in the summer of 2019. The database, however, does not make it possible to determine whether she was under surveillance at any point, and if so, then for how long. The reason for this is that the list includes numbers which were added up until that summer.<\/p>\n

As previously mentioned, Szilas was targeted in the middle of 2019, when \u2013 between two government postings \u2013 she briefly worked as security director at ISD Dunaferr Dunai Vasm\u0171 Ltd. Before this, until the end of March 2019 she worked as Deputy State Secretary for Eastern Relations at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (KKM), and beginning on September 1st, 2019, she was advising Orb\u00e1n. It is not clear if her being targeted was connected to either of these jobs, and if so, then which one.<\/p>\n

According to the answer received from the Prime Minister\u2019s office, in order to be a Senior Advisor, Szilas had to undergo a national security screening process, but they did not disclose when this had happened. Regular national security screenings are done every five years. Based on the available data, which shows that Szilas had become a diplomat in 2009, such a screening would have been due around 2019. Direkt36 submitted a public information request about the details of Szilas\u2019 work and screening, but it was rejected.<\/p>\n

The website of the Israel-based NSO Group, which made the spyware states that their product can only be implemented in investigations connected to organized crime or terrorism.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

A recently presented investigation by the National Authority for Data Protection and Freedom of Information (NAIH) into the Pegasus surveillance case claimed that the Hungarian authorities had indeed only used the spy software in law enforcement or terrorism-related cases.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

However, it seems that Orb\u00e1n\u2019s government continues to trust the former ambassador-senior advisor, and there is no indication that there have been any criminal charges brought against her.<\/p>\n

Szilas informed Direkt36 that since the termination of her mandate as senior advisor, she has been working as International Director at the Authority for Supervision of Regulated Activities. This newly established body is headed up by former State Secretary for Public Administration, Marcell B\u00edr\u00f3, a man from the inner circle of the prime minister. Other than this, Szilas is on the Board of Trustees in the Foundation for Fudan Hungary University (which is supposed to establish the Budapest campus of Fudan University), and is a member of the \u201cWomen for Hungary\u201d club lead by Katalin Nov\u00e1k who was recently appointed as President of the Republic of Hungary.<\/p>\n

The government did not respond to any of our questions related to the former ambassador becoming a target of Pegasus.<\/p>\n

To the top of diplomacy in a flash<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Cec\u00edlia Szilas was born in 1977. She first got involved in China-related politics in 2009, ten years before she was named senior advisor to the prime minister. That is when she became the science and technology attach\u00e9 at the Hungarian Embassy in Beijing.<\/p>\n

Her relationship to China and Chinese connections dates back to long before 2009, however. Multiple sources familiar with the development of Chinese-Hungarian relations agree that her father, the influential China-expert, Andr\u00e1s Szilas has an extremely extensive network of contacts. He was involved with a number of businesses with a Chinese background, and he also has a good relationship with the Fidesz government.<\/p>\n

Cec\u00edlia Szilas, who has a degree in sinology and economics \u2013 the former one from ELTE, and the latter from BGE \u2013 and speaks fluent Chinese, moved up the diplomatic ladder quickly: In 2012 she became deputy ambassador, and in 2014, she was promoted to being ambassador. According to articles published during that time, her husband was working as the representative of the pharmaceutical company Innomed in Beijing at the time.<\/p>\n

In 2017, due to her pregnancy, Szilas resigned from her post and was followed by the unusually young M\u00e1t\u00e9 Pesti as ambassador. According to reports, the choice of her successor was affected by the fact that Imre Pesti, the father of the new ambassador, and Fidesz MP had a good relationship with Andr\u00e1s Szilas.<\/p>\n

After her maternity leave, in August 2018, Cec\u00edlia Szilas returned as Deputy State Secretary for Eastern Relations at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (KKM). She was mostly responsible for Chinese and Russian-related issues, and filled the position until her resignation in March 2019. Before being appointed Senior Advisor to the PM, her career temporarily took a direction away from politics, when she became security director at ISD Dunaferr, and joined the leadership of the Hungarian Iron and Steel Industry Association as Deputy Director for Government Relations. Dunaferr has not responded to our queries relating to their employment of Szilas, nor those about her being targeted with Pegasus.<\/p>\n

Based on numerous press reports, Dunaferr seems to be an extremely problematic company, with Ukrainian and Russian circles fighting for control over it.<\/p>\n

It was during her time working there that Cec\u00edllia Szilas was first targeted with the Pegasus spyware. When asked whether she was involved in things which would have made her a target during her time at Dunaferr, Szilas did not respond. She also refused to comment on when exactly she was asked to be the Prime Minister\u2019s Senior Advisor, and whether she was subjected to further national security screening afterwards.<\/p>\n

\u201cCec\u00edlia Szilas served as Senior Political Advisor at the Prime Minister\u2019s Office between September 1st, 2019 and August 30th, 202\u201d \u2013 states the response sent to Direkt36 by the Prime Minister\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n

According to a source which had taken part in official negotiations with them within that period, Szilas was part of the team of foreign policy advisors lead by J\u00e1nos Balla (former Ambassador to Moscow), where she was responsible for the China portfolio. Balla had officially become Orb\u00e1n\u2019s senior foreign policy advisor after his predecessor, J\u00f3zsef Czukor took the seat as director-general of the Information Office (IH), Hungary’s foreign intelligence agency.<\/p>\n

It was just before the appointment of Szilas that the relationship between Hungary and China had become even closer than before. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi visited Budapest for two days in July 2019 and as Direkt36 later disclosed, it was then that the agreement about Fudan had been made with the Orb\u00e1n government<\/a>.<\/p>\n

According to a document from the Ministry for Innovation and Technology, during his negotiations, Wang Yi \u201ctreated the establishment of Fudan University\u2019s Hungarian campus as a flagship project \u2013 equal in importance to the construction of the Budapest-Belgrade railway line.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to the report published on the government’s official website, at the end of October 2019, Prime Minister Viktor Orb\u00e1n \u201creceived the delegation of the Chinese Fudan University, which is looking to establish a campus in Hungary\u201d, where the Rector of Fudan \u201cinformed the head of the Hungarian government about the institution\u2019s operation and plans.\u201d On the official photo of the negotiation which was held at the Prime Minister’s office in the former Carmelite Monastery, Cec\u00edlia Szilas is seated directly to the right of the Prime Minister.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Cec\u00edlia Szilas, seated next to the Prime Minister. Photo: Kormany.hu<\/p><\/div>\n

Last year, Direkt36 found out what these negotiations were actually about: the Fudan project is a gigantic, \u20ac1.5b (540 billion HUF) campus construction deal. The project would be realized via a loan from China, the costs of which would be borne by Hungarian taxpayers.<\/a> Officially, the university would be established by a foundation. It was this foundation\u2019s board of trustees that Szilas joined in August 2021, at the time when she left her post as senior advisor. The president of the board of trustees is government minister L\u00e1szl\u00f3 Palkovics.<\/p>\n

It was with the intent to stop this foundation from going forward that Gergely Kar\u00e1csony, mayor of Budapest initiated a public referendum. By the middle of January 2022 the opposition parties collected 235\u202fthousand signatures in support of this step, which is in theory enough for calling a referendum.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Cec\u00edlia Szilas is not the first high-ranking Hungarian official who was targeted with the Pegasus spyware. Her phone was added to the list during her stint at a conflict-ridden company called Dunaferr, shortly before becoming the Prime Minister’s senior advisor on China.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":7698,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"single-telex.php","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[111,168,169,259,274,316,330,331],"ppma_author":[549,543],"class_list":["post-9830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-megfigyelesek","tag-fudan","tag-kina","tag-kinai","tag-orban-viktor","tag-pegasus","tag-szilas-cecilia","tag-titkosszolgalat","tag-titkosszolgalatok","author-cap-szabolcs","author-cap-mfanni"],"authors":[{"term_id":549,"user_id":0,"is_guest":1,"slug":"cap-szabolcs","display_name":"Szabolcs","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&r=g","description":"","first_name":"","last_name":"","user_url":""},{"term_id":543,"user_id":0,"is_guest":1,"slug":"cap-mfanni","display_name":"MFanni","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&r=g","description":"","first_name":"","last_name":"","user_url":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/direkt36.exot.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9830","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\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/direkt36.exot.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9830"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/direkt36.exot.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9830\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/direkt36.exot.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/direkt36.exot.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/direkt36.exot.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/direkt36.exot.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9830"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/direkt36.exot.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=9830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}