Both the Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Committee on Human Rights of the Hungarian Parliament put the discussion of Előd Tóásó’s case on their agenda on May 22th, 2012. Előd Tóásó, who is accused of crime against the state, has been unlawfully in detention in Bolivia for more than three years. In both committee meetings, Gergely Gulyás, Member of Parliament (Fidesz) and Vice-Chairman of the Committee on Human Rights as well as Márton Vajna, former Head of the Foreign Office of the President of the Republic reported the discussions and experiences of their three-day visit – commissioned by Foreign Minister János Martonyi – to La Paz. During the visit, the delegation gathered information about the case of Előd Tóásó held in detention.

In their opinion, the continuous violation of the Bolivian laws and regulations on remand and court hearing procedures shows that the case is of political nature, and the conditions for fair legal proceedings are not guaranteed for the accused. According to the counsel for the defence, – as Előd Tóásó was arrested on April 16th, 2009 – even the 36-month deadline for his case stipulated by the recently modified Bolivian code of criminal procedure, which is applied retroactively to him in an unacceptable way, has expired; therefore, the case should be declared statute barred.

Member of Parliament Gergely Gulyás and the representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs who attended the hearing emphasised that the Hungarian diplomacy had been following the case from the very beginning, and it had been striving to establish contact with the representatives of the Bolivian Government (we raised the question at Foreign Ministerial as well as at Presidential level, and we asked and urged the Bolivian authorities to act lawfully in the case in several letters of the Foreign Minister) – up to now without much success. Our ambassador to Buenos Aires, who is also accredited to Bolivia, as well as our diplomats have already been to the location several times. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs tries to find every opportunity to raise the question; during his visit to South America in May, János Martonyi asked for the cooperation of Argentinean Foreign Minister Timerman and Brazilian Foreign Minister Patriota to help to promote Előd Tóásó’s case.

The case was repeatedly raised by the Hungarian side at the meetings of the Working Party on Latin America (COLAT) of the Council of the European Union, asking the EU Mission to La Paz to follow the proceedings with attention. Earlier the Head of the La Paz delegation and heads of the missions of other Member States expressed their concern to Deputy Foreign Minister Juan Carlos Alurralde concerning the proceedings of the so-called “case of terrorism” as well as the rights of the EU citizen Előd Tóásó.

In both commissions of the Hungarian Parliament, the political parties wholeheartedly agreed that with joint effort and by dealing with the question at an EU level, pressure must be exerted on the Bolivian authorities to have respect for the norms of international law and for the general human rights. Ireland and the soon-to-be EU member Croatia could help address the question at an EU level, as the Irish Michael Dwyer died during the liquidation of the alleged terrorist group in 2009, and besides Előd Tóásó, the Croatian-Bolivian citizen Mario Tadic is also in detention in Bolivia.

The Latin American ambassadors accredited to Budapest also received an invitation to the meeting of the Committee on Human Rights, many of whom participated in the session.

(kormany.hu)