German MEP Daniel Freund who was targeted said there were “indications that the Hungarian secret service is behind the attack.”.
A German MEP and an outspoken critic of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has filed a complaint following a failed attempt to hack his email account in the run-up to the European Parliament elections.
Daniel Freund and German NGO the Society for Civil Rights named “Viktor Orbán and unknown” in the complaint, POLITICO reported.
He asked the state prosecutor in the German city of Krefeld and cyber crime authorities to launch an investigation.
“There are indications that the Hungarian secret service is behind the attack,” Freund and the NGO said in a statement on Wednesday.
The complaint points to an email that someone claiming to be a Ukrainian student sent to Freund’s parliamentary email address in May 2024 where the MEP was asked to write a short message in which he would share his “beliefs concerning the accession of Ukraine to the European Union,” and a link which Freund did not click on.
The complaint said that Parliament warned Freund that the link contained spyware likely made by the Israeli company Candiru, blacklisted by the U.S. government in 2021 for human rights violations.
“According to the EU Parliament’s IT experts, the Hungarian government could be behind the eavesdropping on me,” Freund said in a statement. “This comes as no surprise: Orbán despises democracy and the rule of law. If the suspicion is confirmed, it would be an outrageous attack on the European Parliament.”
Freund and the NGO asked prosecutors to open an investigation to clarify “the facts of the case” through investigative measures including the questioning of witnesses and conducting an independent forensic analysis.
There has been no immediate comment on the allegations from the Hungarian government.
If a link is infected with spyware, attackers can access all stored data and communications. They can also activate the camera and microphone to eavesdrop on conversations.
Freund is among the European lawmakers to have successfully lobbied for EU funds for Hungary to be frozen. He also pushed for Hungary’s presidency of the Council of the EU to be suspended last year.
