The prosecutor's office is accusing the socialist politician of influence peddling and other criminal offences. On Thursday, parliament decided to suspend his immunity.

During Thursday’s session in Hungary’s National Assembly, lawmakers voted to suspend the immunity of Hungarian Socialist Party (MSZP) MP Csaba Toth, a move initiated by Chief Prosecutor Peter Polt

on suspicion of influence peddling and other criminal offences.

In 2016, socialist politicians Csaba Toth and Csaba Horvath sought out a company to operate a paid parking system planned for the 14th district of Budapest, with which they agreed on an overpriced service fee and demanded half of the profit, the Hungarian daily Magyar Nemzet recalls.

Zsolt Fuzik, an influential employee of the 14th district parking company gave a detailed account to investigators about who, when, and how much corruption money they received from the SIS Parking Ltd’s profits. Mr Fuzik also submitted to a lie detector test.

According to the polygraph, Mr Fuzik was telling the truth when he spoke about the details of the crimes. The payments were covered by SIS Parking Ltd by issuing fictitious invoices.

According to the prosecutor’s office, Csaba Toth requested and received 31 million forints (more than 81,500 euros) from the proceeds both for himself and for Csaba Horvath, who is also being implicated. In addition, Csaba Toth received 10-15 million forints (approx. 26-40 thousand euros) a month, a total of at least 250 million (650 thousand euros) in cash.

MSZP politicians Ferenc Baja and Zsolt Molnar may also take a hit and fall due to the scandal surrounding the group of companies issuing false invoices, as Mr Baja and Mr Molnar are suspected of having received 30 and 40 million forints, respectively, following a public procurement tender issued by the Budapest Transport Company (BKV). Ferenc Baja claimed to be an IT consultant to Budapest Mayor Gergely Karacsony, and asked for bribes in this capacity.

The four politicians denied having committed the crimes. The joint opposition list for the upcoming general elections currently includes Csaba Horvath and Zsolt Molnar – the latter in a position that may earn him a seat in parliament. According to Mr Karacsony, co-chair of the leftist Dialogue (Parbeszed) party, the question of excluding the accused politicians from the list has not emerged.