BUDAPEST (JTA) — Hungary arrested a far-right activist and leader of the country’s neo-Nazi movement on terrorism charges.
Gyorgy Budahazy, who was charged on several counts of arson and instigation to murder, has declined to cooperate with the investigation and threatened to counter-sue the attorney general.
Hungarian investigators believe they have established a link between Budahazy and the terrorist organization Hungarian Arrows, which has claimed responsibility for several recent arson attacks. The name of the organization is a reference to the Hungarian Arrow-Cross, a Nazi military organization that murdered tens of thousands of Jews during the Holocaust.
Budahazy was present last week at the signing of collaboration accords between Jobbik, a Hungarian neo-Nazi party, and several radical rightist youth organizations.
Budahazy is believed to have established a terror unit in 2007 to spread fear among leftist politicians. Shots fired at the home of Istvan Hiller, the Socialist education minister, and an arson attack on the property of Janos Koka, a Liberal politician and the minister of commerce at the time, allegedly were intended to influence parliamentary debate on health-care reforms and the national budget.
Hungarian Arrows is blamed for these as well as three similar attacks and other incidents.
Budahazy’s arrest is the fifth linked to a police raid on a house in April that uncovered an arsenal of weapons and a bomb-making factory, including several devices thought to have been intended for use on the homes of politicians.
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