”Sorry, I’m a beginner” – said Istv\u00e1n Nagy, Minister of Agriculture, apologising for almost accidentally sitting on the accused’s bench on 25th of February, when he came to testify in the corruption case involving the Ministry of Agriculture at the Court of Sz\u00e9kesfeh\u00e9rv\u00e1r . The minister only appeared in court for the repeated summons, where he was questioned for hours by the judge, the prosecutor and the defence.<\/p>\n
This comedy-style scene is just one of many interesting episodes that have taken place in the trial, which has been going on with little press interest in recent months. Although the criminal case is about the boring bureaucratic details of a seemingly boring ministry, and even the actors are easily confused because of their similar names (there are at least two “Nagy” surnames among them), in fact this trial provides a rare insight into the workings of the Hungarian government.<\/p>\n
The essence of the case is that the prosecution accuses the former Deputy State Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture, Dr. J\u00e1nos Nagy, of having paid 2.2 billion forints to two law firms, which, according to the prosecution, did not do any substantial work. The money was transferred in 2019 from the account of the back office, which was about to be closed down.<\/p>\n
J\u00e1nos Nagy testified that the Minister himself gave the order to conclude the allegedly fictitious contracts. However, the minister has now claimed that he was unaware of the case at the time the contracts were signed. He testified that when he learned that an investigation was under way, he was “desperate” and was mainly concerned about his own involvement, for example whether he had signed something without his knowledge that could get him into trouble.<\/p>\n
Besides the Minister’s testimony, there were other interesting developments in the trial:<\/p>\n
At the trial in December of 2024 the names of companies with Fidesz ties also came up, which were not charged by the prosecution, but could also have benefited from the last billions of the National Cadastre Programme (NKP). According to a testimony, there were several Fidesz-linked companies contracted by the NKP immediately before the closure.<\/p>\n
Among them there is a company owned by a former Fidesz MP, Imre Bod\u00f3, and another by a former well-known Fidesz politician, Attila V\u00e1rhegyi. The evidence for these is a filing book in which contracts from the last few months were entered, according to the indictment, to make the false contracts appear legitimate.<\/p>\n
Another curious aspect of the case is that, in addition to the two law firms implicated in the prosecution’s allegations, there is a third law firm that also received a valuable contract from the NKP before it was dissolved.<\/p>\n
This contract was for 500 million forints and was given to the office of Andr\u00e1s Ber\u00e9nyi, a lawyer who often appears in the media and who claims to be a Fidesz member. Ber\u00e9nyi was not charged in the case. At the beginning of the case, however, he represented the main defendant, former Deputy State Secretary J\u00e1nos Nagy, and appeared alongside other participants in the case.<\/p>\n
“I have to be honest, I was excited and nervous about this story, about how much I was involved. Did I sign something that I didn’t see in all the papers?”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
– said Agriculture Minister Istv\u00e1n Nagy in court when he was questioned as a witness in the case on 25 February.<\/p>\n
He said he does not have the capacity to read and interpret every document that comes across his desk. “There are so many dossiers to sign every day… If you were to read through them all (…) to interpret the legal language in them, it would take weeks, not a day.” The minister added that he has a well-established solution to the situation, if he sees that a document has already been signed by several people, including his chief of staff, he can sign it.<\/p>\n
“The colleagues are there and the organisational structure is set up so that I can sign in safety,” Nagy explained.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
In this case, however, he most certainly did not sign anything, he told the court, because “they completely hid it from me and left me out of it”. Contracts of more than 10 million forints required special approval, but Nagy insisted in court that he did not see the multi-billion HUF contracts for lawyers in the case. After an internal investigation ruled out his own involvement, his then chief of staff also assured him that there was no case.<\/p>\n
According to the Minister, the then chief of cabinet, M\u00e1rton Nobilis, told him that by the time the court proceedings were completed, it would be clear to everyone that there could be no criminality in the case. Although the judge found the matter strange, Nagy insisted that he did not want to know any more about the case, which he claimed he still did not know the depth of.<\/p>\n
If the chief of cabinet signs…<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Istv\u00e1n Nagy’s words are in complete contradiction to what the prime accused in the case, former deputy state secretary J\u00e1nos Nagy, testified at the trial. According to J\u00e1nos Nagy’s earlier testimony in 2023, the lawyers’ contracts worth hundreds of millions of euros were essentially concluded by the NKP on the instructions of the minister. J\u00e1nos Nagy has now testified that he was instructed by chief of staff, M\u00e1rton Nobilis, on behalf of the Minister of Agriculture, as to which law firms to contract and how much to contract.<\/p>\n
However, Istvan Nagy, although he indicated that he trusted the chief of cabinet, strongly denied this.<\/p>\n
“I can’t say anything about that, because what is said in my name, without my authority, I have no (control over – the editor)” – he said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The judge was also interested in the question, but the Minister of Agriculture gave an avoiding answer:<\/p>\n
“Judge: So did M\u00e1rton Nobilis, who was your chief of staff at the time, have the capacity and the authority to convey even untrue things to Dr. J\u00e1nos Nagy, according to this?
\nIstv\u00e1n Nagy: I don’t know, I don’t assume that.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\nThe name of the minister’s then chief of staff, M\u00e1rton Nobilis, was not the first to be mentioned at the hearing.<\/p>\n
Nobilis has a special role in the case, as he is involved not only because of his former position, but also because of a family connection. Nobilis’s father, Krist\u00f3f Nobilis, is also a defendant in the case, accused of budget fraud on the basis of another set of facts and sentenced to a term of imprisonment. According to the indictment, the lawyers’ offices paid by the NKP transferred substantial sums of money to a Swiss bank account through a company in Budapest. According to the prosecution, the account was owned by a Panamanian offshore company linked to Krist\u00f3f Nobilis, who did not pay taxes on the money received. The elder Nobilis denied guilt, while his son had previously exercised his right to immunity on the grounds of family involvement and did not confess. In other words, it is not known what M\u00e1rton Nobilis thinks about his role in the case, but he is not among the accused.<\/p>\n
Direkt36 sent questions to both M\u00e1rton Nobilis and Minister Istv\u00e1n Nagy at the Ministry of Agriculture. Neither of them responded to our request.<\/p>\n
The filing book<\/strong><\/h2>\n
The lawsuit also revealed details of how other people with government connections were getting their hands on money from the Ministry of Agriculture’s back office.<\/p>\n
At a trial in December 2024, one of the defendants read out extracts from the so-called NKP filing book, which contained contracts concluded by the organisation.<\/p>\n
One of the named companies is Bod\u00f3 Ltd., owned by Imre Bod\u00f3, who was a Fidesz member of parliament between 2007 and 2014, and who also served as Fidesz mayor of the Tiszasziget settlement in Csongr\u00e1d County for several years. Bod\u00f3’s main business at the time was gambling and betting, and he gave professional advice to the state agricultural company.<\/p>\n
The testimony also refers to pm018 Ltd. as one of NKP’s contractual partners. This company is owned by the V\u00e1rhegyi family, and its managing director is Attila V\u00e1rhegyi, a former Fidesz member of parliament who was once Fidesz’s state secretary for culture and mayor of Szolnok.<\/p>\n
The registry book also lists a family company, AGON Bt., founded in 1994, as a contractual partner of NKP. The founding owner of the company is the former director of the Operett Theatre, Gy\u00f6rgy L\u0151rinczy, who also held public office in the past. In 2017, Zolt\u00e1n Balog, Minister of Human Resources, appointed L\u0151rinczy as vice-president of the National Cultural Fund for 4 years.<\/p>\n
Direkt36 has sent questions to all three companies about the contract with the Ministry of Agriculture’s back office. Attila V\u00e1rhegyi said that the NKP had contracted his company to provide communications consultancy services for the first half of 2019 for a net amount of HUF 9.6 million, and that his company had completed the task and received the amount. According to V\u00e1rhegyi, NKP approached them, but he could not remember with whom exactly they had negotiated. The former Fidesz MP also said that, although he did not know anyone at the NKP, he had contacts in the ministry. He said that the minister and the deputy minister were among his contacts, and that the then chief of cabinet, M\u00e1rton Nobilis, had previously been his employee.<\/p>\n
Gy\u00f6rgy L\u0151rinczy told Direkt36 that his company has signed a 6-month contract with NKP for communications consultancy services for a monthly fee of HUF half million. According to L\u0151rinczy, he was approached for the job by minister Istv\u00e1n Nagy, which was a job that suited his profession, as he had previously worked in communications companies. He added that under the contract, he was actually working in the minister’s communications team, as well as doing protocol, marketing and event management for other ministry institutions. He said he had been told that to do this he had to sign a contract with the NKP, to which he nodded only if it was specifically included in his contract that he could work not only for the NKP but also directly for the Ministry of Agriculture, which runs it.<\/p>\n
Imre Bod\u00f3 did not respond to questions sent to him.<\/p>\n
The third contract<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Direkt36 has requested the contracts of the National Cadastre Programme Nkft. for the last months from the Ministry of Agriculture by means of a public interest information request. The data shows that, in addition to the two lawyer contracts detailed in the indictment, the NKP also concluded a third lawyer contract for a significant sum. This was the law firm of Andr\u00e1s Ber\u00e9nyi, with whom a contract for HUF 500 million was signed.<\/p>\n
Andr\u00e1s Ber\u00e9nyi is a well-known lawyer who is a frequent media personality and who has previously worked as a lawyer for P\u00e9ter Hajd\u00fa, a media owner, and Lajos Galambos, “Lajcsi Lagzi”, a popular musician. He has taught at the National University of Public Service and attended Donald Trump’s first presidential inauguration in the United States.<\/p>\n
In an interview in 2019, he said of himself that he hates the term “celebrity lawyer” and “celebrating in the profession”, but clients love it. In the same interview, Ber\u00e9nyi also said that he is a member of the governing party Fidesz and that his law firm is “outstanding both in terms of state and foreign partners”.<\/p>\n
The contract between NKP and Ber\u00e9nyi and Partners Law Office was concluded on 6 June 2019. Just in time, because NKP was dissolved less than a month later.<\/p>\n
The prosecution did not prosecute this contract, and it is not clear from the indictment why.<\/p>\n
This question was also raised by the main defendant in the case, former deputy state secretary J\u00e1nos Nagy, who had earlier complained that this 500 million HUF contract was not subject to the same assessment as the other two contracts mentioned above.<\/p>\n
“The investigating authority did not object to the Ber\u00e9nyi contract and its execution, and then there could have been no objection to the other two, and the same is true, because the three contracts were concluded by the NKP at the same time, so it did not conclude only the two contracts at the same time”, said J\u00e1nos Nagy in court during one of the 2023 hearings of the case.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Another curious aspect of the case is that J\u00e1nos Nagy was previously defended by Andr\u00e1s Ber\u00e9nyi, during the investigation of the case. Nagy later changed lawyers, as he said he thought Ber\u00e9nyi should have been disqualified earlier because he represented several witnesses in the case, but as this did not happen, he intervened in the case himself. But more interesting is why he chose Ber\u00e9nyi earlier. In one of his testimonies, Nagy claimed that it was not his idea to have Ber\u00e9nyi as his defence lawyer.<\/p>\n
“It’s rare that a person is in a situation where the military prosecutor shows up, handcuffs him. I got a name and a phone number before it happened to me, a few minutes before. In the shock that this caused me, I had no other option than this lawyer.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
– said Nagy, who did not say any more in his testimony. He said that he gave the authorization, but would not say who gave him the phone number.<\/p>\n
Direkt36 has obtained several documents that show that the law firm Ber\u00e9nyi and Partners had an even greater role in the criminal case. According to the documents we have obtained, Andr\u00e1s Ber\u00e9nyi was not only J\u00e1nos Nagy’s defence lawyer, he also gave legal representation to two witnesses in the case.<\/p>\n
We also contacted the key actors in the case, such as Andr\u00e1s Ber\u00e9nyi and J\u00e1nos Nagy, but they did not respond to Direkt36’s request.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
More and more pro-Fidesz figures are appearing in the court case linked to the Ministry of Agriculture. Meanwhile, minister Istv\u00e1n Nagy was only worried about what he had signed. Direkt36 has learned new details about the twisted case.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":11882,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"single-telex.php","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,20],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[550],"aioseo_notices":[],"fimg_url":["https:\/\/www.direkt36.hu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/nagy_istvan_d36.jpg",2250,1500,false],"authors":[{"term_id":550,"user_id":27,"is_guest":0,"slug":"szoke-daniel","display_name":"D\u00e1niel Sz\u0151ke","avatar_url":{"url":"https:\/\/www.direkt36.hu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Szoke-Daniel.png","url2x":"https:\/\/www.direkt36.hu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Szoke-Daniel.png"},"author_category":"","user_url":"","last_name":"Sz\u0151ke","first_name":"D\u00e1niel","job_title":"","description":"[:hu]Informatikus k\u00f6nyvt\u00e1ros szakon v\u00e9gzett az ELTE-n 2013-ban. K\u00fcls\u0151sk\u00e9nt t\u00f6bb \u00e9vig dolgozott a 444.hu-val, majd 2020-ban r\u00e9szt vett a Transparency International oknyomoz\u00f3 \u00fajs\u00e1g\u00edr\u00f3i mentorprogramj\u00e1ban. 2021 janu\u00e1rj\u00e1t\u00f3l gyakornokk\u00e9nt, 2021 szeptember\u00e9t\u0151l pedig teljes \u00e1ll\u00e1sban a Direkt36 \u00fajs\u00e1g\u00edr\u00f3ja.[:en]Graduated from E\u00f6tv\u00f6s Lor\u00e1nd University at 2013 as a librarian scientist. As a freelancer he worked with 444.hu news-site for several years, and in 2020 attended Transparency International\u2019s mentor program for investigative journalists. In January 2021 he started to work as an intern, and since September 2021 he is a full-time journalist of Direkt36.[:]"}],"tag_names":[],"category_names":[{"name":"Advisors of the State","slug":"az-allam-tanacsadoi"},{"name":"Offshore Secrets","slug":"offshore-secrets"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.direkt36.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11881"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.direkt36.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.direkt36.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.direkt36.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.direkt36.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11881"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.direkt36.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11881\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11892,"href":"https:\/\/www.direkt36.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11881\/revisions\/11892"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.direkt36.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.direkt36.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.direkt36.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.direkt36.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11881"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.direkt36.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=11881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}