More than two years after the incident, Hungary’s prosecution service has formally asked parliament to suspend Magyar’s immunity so that the criminal investigation can proceed.
On 22 September, the deputy prosecutor general acting with the powers of the prosecutor general submitted a request to the Hungarian National Assembly to suspend Magyar’s parliamentary immunity. Under Hungarian law, the prosecution cannot continue criminal proceedings against an MP until parliament agrees to lift that protection.
According to the prosecutor, Magyar was at a Budapest nightclub when several people began filming him. A confrontation followed. Prosecutors say Magyar took the phone from a man’s hand, put it in his pocket and refused repeated requests to return it. Then leaving the club, Magyar ran toward the Danube and through the device into the river. Police divers later recovered the phone, valued at roughly $450. - and returned it to its owner in working condition.
“The case dates back to 21 June 2024, shortly after Magyar’s breakthrough in the European elections.”
EuroAsia.News, reporting from Budapest
The prosecution classified the conduct as potentially constituting theft.
The affair has already travelled once through the European immunity system. Magyar had just been elected to the European Parliament when the incident occurred. Hungarian prosecutors requested the lifting of his immunity in September 2024, but in October 2025 the European Parliament refused. The Parliament stressed at the same time that an immunity procedure does not determine guilt or innocence. Magyar was according to eye witnesses drunk.
That protection disappeared when Magyar left the European Parliament on 8 May 2026. The following day he entered Hungary’s National Assembly and acquired Hungarian parliamentary immunity instead. The investigation therefore became possible again, but only if now the Hungarian parliament agrees to suspend that new immunity.
The political circumstances have changed dramatically since the incident. Magyar is no longer merely Viktor Orbán’s challenger. Following the Tisza party victory in the April 2026 parliamentary election, he became prime minister, ending sixteen years of Orbán-led government.
That makes the case politically explosive regardless of its relatively modest financial value. Hungary now has a sitting prime minister facing a criminal investigation stemming from behaviour before he took office, which however kind of fits his current behaviour of shouting at and interrupting opposition speakers in parliament or journalists in press conferences when he doesn’t like something.
Magyar’s response has been confrontational.
He accused elements of the prosecution service of trying to equate his phone case with major corruption investigations involving officials from the previous political era. At the same time, however, he asked parliament to lift his immunity immediately, saying he wanted the proceedings to go ahead. The prosecution subsequently welcomed his stated willingness to allow the case to proceed while rejecting his accusations against the institution.
Magyar has also proposed going further: on 23 September he called for parliamentary immunity to be abolished altogether in cases involving offences prosecuted by the state.
Magyar came to power promising a fundamental break with Hungary’s previous political system and stronger accountability for public officials. His own case will now test how those principles operate when legal scrutiny reaches the prime minister himself.
If parliament suspends his immunity, prosecutors will finally be able to pursue the investigation on its merits. The question will then move away from political protection and back to the events of that June night: what exactly happened inside the club, why was the phone taken, and how did it end up at the bottom of the Danube?
But looking at how currently things are going in Hungary, unconstitutionally removing the president, firing and threatening judges, it looks more like a well staged movie in which he asks to lift his immunity because he knows that his judges won’t sentence him. On the other hand this gives him a free hand to initiate proceedings of any kind through his newly created super-agency; this body can then pass judgment on any opposition MP without recourse to court or police proceedings, as they no longer enjoy parliamentary immunity.
