Hungarian prime minister stripped of immunity over phone theft case

Hungarian Prime Minister Péter Madiar is now subject to questioning as a suspect and could face trial over the alleged theft of a mobile phone in 2024, after parliament voted on Monday to lift his immunity by a majority of 139 members, without any opposing votes or abstentions.

Prosecutors had requested the removal of Madiar's immunity—he is also a member of parliament—after he was accused of snatching a mobile phone from a man filming him in a nightclub in 2024, then throwing the device into the Danube River.

Madiar himself requested the lifting of his immunity, stating he was ready to cooperate with the investigation to clear his name, describing the case as a "farce" and calling the accusations a "character assassination." He accused his opponents of targeting him for political reasons.

The case dates back to when Madiar was a member of the European Parliament, which at the time refused to lift his immunity. After later resigning from the European Parliament, he became a member of the Hungarian parliament following his Tisa party's landslide victory in the April 2026 legislative elections.

Last week, Madiar said prosecutors were trying to "conflate" his case with those of two former ministers from the previous government led by Viktor Orban, calling the proceedings against him a "political character assassination" that had failed several times before.

In the same session, parliament also lifted the immunity of former culture minister Balázs Hankó and former development minister Miklós Szeszták, paving the way for investigations into two separate cases.

Hankó, a member of the Fidesz party, is accused of embezzling more than $46 million (40 million euros) in public funds.

Szeszták, from the Christian Democratic People's Party, is under investigation for allegedly accepting millions of dollars in bribes while serving as minister of national development between 2014 and 2018.

Both former ministers deny any wrongdoing. The Fidesz party, led by Orban, and its ally, the Christian Democratic People's Party, boycotted the parliamentary session in which the immunity of all three figures was lifted.