Daily Stormer
May 17, 2014
A 92-year-old former senior Hungarian Communist Party official was convicted on Tuesday of war crimes over shootings of civilian protesters after the November 1956 uprising that was crushed by Soviet tanks.
It was the first trial of an ex-top communist in Hungary since the government of Prime Minister Viktor Orban, a staunch anti-communist, enacted a law in 2011 to enable prosecution of crimes committed after the anti-Communist revolt.
More than two decades after the fall of Communism, Bela Biszku was charged over his role on a party committee prosecutors said was involved in ordering the shootings of several civilians during protests in Budapest and in the town of Salgotarjan in December 1956 in which dozens of people died.
A Budapest court sentenced Biszku to five-and-a-half years’ imprisonment. The prosecution, which had sought a life sentence, said it would lodge an appeal.
“Bela Biszku is guilty of war crimes committed as an abettor (of) homicide against more than one person,” Judge Szabolcs Toth told the packed courtroom. For his part, Biszku denied all charges and his lawyer said the verdict would be appealed.