The Budapest Central District Court on Friday remanded Gyorgy Matolcsy, the former governor of the National Bank of Hungary (NBH), into custody for one month.
The court ordered the detention on suspicion of graft and use of forged documents, Anna Madarasi, a spokesperson for the court, said.
Madarasi said the court also ordered the 30-day detention of the representative who acted during the conclusion of the loan agreement – which forms the basis of the suspicion – as well as a lawyer involved in the securities transaction, Mihaly Valko and Tamas Sandor. She noted that György Matolcsy did not provide a statement, nor did the other two suspects.
The court found that there were well-founded concerns regarding the suspects — specifically the risk of them absconding, going into hiding, interfering with the proceedings, or reoffending — and concluded that no less restrictive coercive measure would be appropriate. The court also entertained no doubts regarding the well-founded suspicion that a crime had been committed or the financial loss that had been incurred, the spokesperson stated.
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She also said that the prosecutor’s office has requested the issuance of European and international arrest warrants for Adam Matolcsy, as well as for Gyorgy Stofa, the head of the companies managing the assets of the NBH foundations.
Following appeals filed by the suspects and their defence counsel, the court order for their arrest is not yet final, the spokesperson said.
Matolcsy was detained for questioning on Wednesday by the Central Chief Prosecution Office of Investigation (KNYF) on suspicion of financial fraud and the use of forged documents.
The KNYF said it had taken action regarding the attempted transfer of control, under a sham securities lending agreement, of assets in the central bank’s PADME Foundation to a group of people over whom Matolcsy would have influence after his mandate as central bank governor ended. The aim of the agreement, signed a day before the governor’s term ended, was to enable Matolcsy and his son to use the assets for investments for their own gain, it added.
The resulting financial loss cannot be precisely calculated at present, but is “well over” the HUF 500m threshold for a “particularly significant financial loss”, the KNYF said.
As we wrote earlier, international arrest warrant issued for György Matolcsy’s son