Police have launched an investigation after Minister of Justice Judit Varga reported the “Devil’s Advocate” Facebook page to authorities, as reported in tabloid Blikk from a statement issued by the Budapest Prosecutor’s Office yesterday morning. The Minister’s complaint referred to untrue allegations the social media page made about her in late December.
According to the statement, Judit Varga filed charges against an unknown perpetrator for public defamation. The Minister’s report states that on December 27, 2021, an unknown perpetrator made false allegations about her sexual orientation on the “Devil’s Advocate” social media page, which also alleged that she was directly involved in a corruption case.
The statement from the Budapest Prosecutor’s Office also states that the Minister proposed that the prosecutor’s office assume the duties of prosecuting the case, and subsequently attorneys general in Budapest’s Districts I and XII launched an investigation into suspected public defamation. The investigation will be handled by the Budapest Police Headquarters.
In late December, the unknown persons behind the “Devil’s Advocate” page claimed that they would be “reactivating” in January, and appeared to promise dirt on Katalin Novák, former minister of families and Fidesz’s nominee for head of state, and Minister of Justice Judit Varga.
However, the author posted again the very next day with vague insinuations regarding Varga’s sexual orientation, leading to the Minister filing charges against the poster.
In 2019, the “Devil’s Advocate” Facebook page exposed a sex scandal involving Zsolt Borkai, the former Fidesz Mayor of Győr, who eventually resigned his post. At that time, various allegations appeared on the site on an almost daily basis, but until late last month there had been scant updates from the anonymous poster.