REVIEW TOPICS:
Hungary’s National Security Office head reportedly kept under surveillance by security company
Secret Services Minister of Hungary accuses opposition members of involvement with spy firm
Bulgarian journalist linked with online site closed by security service attacked in Sofia
Crimean Tatars ask SBU to come to understand sitation with Russian passports in Ukraine’s peninsula
Security Service of Ukraine liquidated large laboratory on manufacture of drugs in Kiev
Orthodox Church suggests heavenly protector to FSB instead of Dzerzhinsky statue
Estonian Prime Minister wants introduction of stricter punishment for high treason
Security forces exercises on neutralization of hostage takers held in Kyrgyz capital city
Hungary’s National Security Office head reportedly kept under surveillance by
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Hungary's NHB emblem |
security company
Several senior Finance Ministry officials, including state secretary László Keller, were targeted by security company UD Vagyonvedelmi, Népszabadság reports. Keller was state secretary during the Prime Minister Medgyessy era, and investigated what he had thought to be suspicious cases from the Viktor Orbán Fidesz party administration.
According to unconfirmed information, it is assumed that Democratic Forum leader Ibolya Dávid, Economy Minister Gordon Bajnai, National Security Office head Sándor Laborc, and a Finance Ministry undersecretary were also kept under surveillance. Bajnai was targeted as a potential prime minister, Keller's assignments at the ministry were looked into, as were Laborc's links to Moscow, where he was trained, but nothing compromising was discovered.
Meanwhile the Budapest Prosecutor General's Office rejected a complaint filed by Dávid over a recording in which UD owner János Tóth and OTP chairman and CEO Sándor Csányi discuss a possible attempt to uncover compromising information about her. The Court agreed that unidentified persons had intended to commission someone to obtain information about Dávid, but said the law does not punish preparations for such a crime. Police did not question anyone in the matter.
"The UD management will launch criminal proceedings and compensation lawsuits against the media as it finds it outrageous that the company has been continuously discredited in the media over the last week, and has been connected to crimes and surveillance of politicians, which lack any grounds," UD's management lawyer Barnabás Futó announced according to Hungary Around the Clock. He added that business and political interests are behind the whole matter.
Free Democrat national council leader József Gulyás said Parliament’s national security committee will be given a substantive briefing about the so-called tapping case, in a statement he sent to the chair of the committee and Secret Services Minister György Szilvásy. "The topic has apparently not been put on the agenda of the committee meeting scheduled for Tuesday. However, I expect police to provide an explanation on how information has been leaked daily, as this could shake confidence in the police and slow down the clearing up of the matter," Gulyás added.
Secret Services Minister of Hungary accuses opposition members of involvement with spy firm
The Secret Services Minister of Hungary, Gyorgy Szilvasy, announced today that two former secret services ministers during the Fidesz party administration (1998-2002) were in regular contact with a security company at the centre of spying allegations, news agency MTI reports from Budapest. He accused the two officials of the Fidesz party, which is now in opposition, of commissioning security firm UD Vagyonvedelmi to acquire information.
AIA reported that official investigation was launched two weeks ago in connection with spyware found on the computers of Hungary's National Security Office (NBH). Police suspect UD Vagyonvedelmi of installing spyware in order to discover if the security services were monitoring its activities.
Among other allegations is the charge that several finance ministry officials, including Deputy
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| Gyorgy Szilvasy |
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Minister Laszlo Keller, were among the targets of UD's surveillance. Reports suggest that Gordon Bajnai, the economy minister, and Sandor Laborc, the head of the NBH, were also among officials which the firm spied on, news agency notes.
The network associated with UD had infiltrated various organisations and acquired confidential private and business information, as well as state secrets, Szilvasy said after a meeting of the national security committee. He marked that he was unable to accuse Ervin Demeter and Laszlo Kover of being aware of the fact that the information they had ordered from the company could only be acquired by unlawful means. However, he added that if he himself had ordered the information, he would have been aware of this fact. Szilvasy said the national security committee had also asked him to present proof that backed up his statement.
Ervin Demeter, one of the former Fidesz who stands accused by Szilvasy, said that the secret services minister had created a "soap opera" out of the investigation in order to politically target Fidesz. However, he admitted that he had been in regular contact with the head of the affected security firm, both in person and over the phone.
Employees of the firm are said to have spied on their targets with similar methods used by the national security services, examining their way of life, sexual habits, business contacts, bank accounts, phone calls and even their household garbage. They also examined if there was any discrepancy between the targets' living standards and incomes, said the reports.
UD is also at the centre of an ongoing scandal related to the conservative opposition Democratic Forum's party elections. Ibolya David, the Democratic Forum's leader, had asked police to start an investigation in connection with an audio CD she had received containing a recording of a telephone conversation whose contents indicate that someone had commissioned UD to spy on her.
The recording reveals the co-owner of UD talking to the head of OTP Bank Sandor Csanyi, one of UD's clients, regarding "a well-paid job". Top officials of main opposition Fidesz are suspected of having been involved in financing the commissioning of UD in relation to the Democratic Forum leadership election. Press reports suggest that Ibolya David, who has staunchly maintained the party's independence, was at risk of losing the party leadership to Kornel Almassy, the Forum's deputy head, who is said to favour closer co-operation with Fidesz.
In the meantime, the Public Prosecutor's Office has rejected David's request to launch an investigation, arguing that merely planning to collect information about someone does not constitute the crime of actually accessing private information.
Bulgarian journalist linked with online site closed by security service attacked in Sofia
The editor in chief of a Bulgarian online news provider frognews.bg, Ognyan Stefanov, 54,
was attacked by four men who broke his arms and legs as he walked out of a restaurant in the Bulgarian capital city of Sofia, online paper World Bulletin reports. Stefanov is recovering in hospital. It is the latest of several attacks on journalists in the Balkan country in the past year. Earlier this year, a gunman killed an author of books on the Bulgarian mafia. At least three reporters and photojournalists have been beaten in Bulgaria in 2008.
In 2006, a bomb exploded in the apartment of an investigative journalist who had been threatened over his stories uncovering crime and abuse of power among police, notaries and state officials.
Stefanov’s name was recently linked to another news provider that was closed by the national security service for allegedly publishing classified information on high-level police corruption, but Stefanov has denied any links with that site, World Bulletin marks.
Crimean Tatars ask SBU to come to understand situation with Russian passports in Ukraine’s peninsula
The member of the Supreme Rada (parliament) of Ukraine, chairman of Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people, Mustafa Dzhemilev, has been supporting checking by the Security Service
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Crimea on map |
of Ukraine (SBU) of legality of granting to residents of the Crimea peninsula of the Russian citizenship. Dzhemilev underlines this in an interview to the weekly magazine Kontrakty.
"It is necessary that the SBU carries out total check-up to find out in which cases the Russian passports were given out short-circuiting legislation", he marked. Dzhemilev added that according to available data, granting to the population of the Crimea of the Russian citizenship has been taking place constantly and assumed that the number of Ukrainians having the Russian citizenship in the Crimea has reached 200,000 people. "It is not a tiny figure for such a small peninsula like the Crimea", he emphasized.
The member of parliament believes that at revealing the facts of presence of dual citizenship the Ukrainian authorities should suggest to such people to define one citizenship.
In the beginning of September, the Ministry of Interior of Ukraine made an inquiry to the Russian authorities to give the information on a number of people who have the Russian citizenship in Ukraine. Dual citizenship is legislatively forbidden in Ukraine.
Orthodox Church suggests heavenly protector to FSB instead of Dzerzhinsky statue
The Union of Orthodox Citizens has responded negatively to the proposal of deputy chairman of the Russian State Duma Security Committee, Vladimir Kolesnikov, to re-erect the monument to Felix Dzerzhinsky on Lubyanka Square, in front of Federal Security Service (FSB) headquarters, in downtown Moscow, daily Kommersant reports. Instead, it proposes to find the Russian special services a heavenly protector, the paper adds.
The Russian Orthodox Church has supported the citizen organization’s position. The statue of the chairman of the VChK (one of a string of predecessors to the FSB) was erected in front of the then KGB in 1958 and toppled in 1991 after the unsuccessful attempt by the State Emergencies Committee to oust Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev.
“Dzerzhinsky was a demonic enemy of the Russian Orthodox Church whose hands are stained with the blood of modern martyrs and confessors. His political rehabilitation is contrary to President [of Russia Dmitry] Medvedev’s course toward the restoration of a great Russia, for Dzerzhinsky was one of the symbols of Bolshevik Russophobia,” the Union of Orthodox Citizens’ statement reads. “We hold that such statements [as Kolesnikov’s] still appear because the Russian special services have yet to receive, as many other types of forces have, their own heavenly protector.”
“For example, the protector of the Federal Security Service [FSB] could be the holy blessed Prime Alexander Nevsky,” said head of the Union of Orthodox Citizens Moscow branch Kirill Frolov, “and his words ‘He who comes to us with a sword will die by the sword’ can be the motto of every counterintelligence officer.” The Union of Orthodox Citizens is well-known for its militant defense of the interests of the Russian Orthodox Church in Russia and Ukraine, Kommersant adds.
Security Service of Ukraine liquidated large laboratory on manufacture of drugs in Kiev
The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) liquidated a criminal organization which acted in the territories of Kiev and Vinnitsa area and specialized on manufacture and selling of metadon, news agency UNIAN reports, referring to the SBU press centre. The hi-tech laboratory on illegal manufacture of the drug has been destroyed, news agency notes.
On September, 16th by employees The organizer of the criminal grouping, a resident of Vinnitsa area was arrested by the SBU officers who using capacities of one of the enterprises of Kiev, adjusted manufacture of metadon in laboratory conditions and provided also its further selling through accomplices in Vinnitsa area. Three criminal group of three persons involved in its business a highly skilled chemist who developed the know-how of production of metadon and carried out its synthesis, UNIAN adds.
Estonian Prime Minister wants introduction of stricter punishment for high treason
AIA reported yesterday that a high-ranking officer of Estonia’s Defence Ministry had been arrested for spying in favour of a foreign country. The former Chief of Estonian Defence Ministry’s State Secret Protection Department, Herman Simm, reportedly gathered confidential materials and delivered to one of the foreign states.
The Prime Minister of Estonia, Andrus Ansip, said in this connection that the maximum punishment of 15 years of imprisonment established by the Estonian legislation in case of high
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| Andrus Ansip |
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treason was not enough.
«Naturally, no state wants recurrence of such cases, but we together with our partners have done good teamwork», Ansip told the daily Postimees. According to Ansip, only a small part of work has been done and more efforts are needed to find out the amount of the caused damage and to plan actions to avoid similar episodes in future. He said security of Estonia had been strengthened already by the fact that possible high treason had been neutralized.
Having emphasized that he would not like to act in a role of the judge, the Prime Minister said that 15 years of imprisonment for high treason is too soft punishment. Ansip does not consider that the present Minister of Defence is politically responsible for the occurence and there are grounds for his resignation. «If we have revealed high treason and have found the suspect I would rather name it more likely an achievement than a failure of the Minister of Defence», Ansip said. He added that the investigation would show whether someone else should bear responsible for Simm’s activity.
The President of Estonia, Toomas Hendrik Ilves, has highly evaluated actions of the Security Police and other agencies in disclosing of the given case and expressed hope that final conclusions will be made following the judicial procedure. « However, I consider preventive work even more important to not allow recurrence of similar cases in the future», Postimees cites Ilves.
Security forces exercises on neutralization of hostage takers held in Kyrgyz capital city
Security forces exercises were held in the capital city of Kyrgyzstan, Bishkek, with an aim of putting into practice of training skills to neutralize terrorists who have taken hostages and threatened to blow them up if their requirements are not fulfilled, online news agency 24.kg reports, referring to the press service of the President of Kyrgyzstan.
The exercises were held under supervision of the Secretary of the Security Council of Kyrgyzstan, Ismail Isakov; units of the Interior Ministry, Defense Ministry and Emergency Situations Ministry and the National Security State Committee were engaged in the exercises.
«The prime objective of the exercises was to check readiness of security forces and means of the given structures to counteraction to acts of terrorism in public places with large gathering of people, as well as to check the order of interoperability of power structures, law enforcement bodies and intelligence agencies at carrying out of special operations», the press service marks. The plan of the exercises was developed by the Security Council of Kyrgyzstan, 24.kg says.
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