EditConvicted hitman admits 1998 bombings were orchestrated to help Orbán’s Fidesz win elections
Jozef Roháč, who is writing a book about his criminal life, says he will name the person who ordered the bombings in the forthcoming volume
A notorious Slovak hitman serving a life sentence in Hungary has confessed that he carried out a series of unsolved bombings in 1998, timed to swing public sympathy toward Viktor Orbán’s right-wing Fidesz party and help it defeat the ruling Socialist-Liberal government in that year’s parliamentary elections.
Jozef Roháč, a career criminal with a long record of contract killings and terrorism-related offences, made the admission through his lawyer, Ilona Patócs, in an interview with investigative outlet Atlatszo published on 12 March. He explicitly stated that the attacks – which caused property damage but no injuries – were not random but deliberately designed to create outrage and boost Fidesz’s electoral chances.
The bombings targeted high-profile right-wing figures and institutions just weeks before the May 1998 vote. Explosions occurred outside the Fidesz party headquarters in Budapest, at the apartment of József Torgyán (leader of the Independent Smallholders’ Party, which later formed a coalition with Fidesz), and at the home of Fidesz politician József Szájer. Roháč claims he was instructed by an unnamed third party and took care to ensure the devices caused no casualties.
At the time, Hungary was still emerging from the chaotic post-communist transition of the 1990s. The ruling Socialist-Liberal coalition was deeply unpopular amid economic hardship and corruption scandals. Orbán’s Fidesz, then a young conservative opposition force, capitalised on widespread discontent. The bombings triggered national shock and media fury directed at the government, contributing to a decisive right-wing victory that brought Orbán to power for the first time.
The police investigation into the attacks was closed without identifying the perpetrators. The crimes have since become time-barred under Hungarian law, meaning no one can now be prosecuted for them.
Roháč, who is writing a book about his criminal life, says he will name the person who ordered the bombings in the forthcoming volume. He has a long and violent history: he once kidnapped a communist-era Czechoslovak minister, escaped prison, and was later convicted for high-profile murders and the deadly 1998 Aranykéz Street bombing in Budapest that killed four people. Hungarian and Slovak underworld figures, and possibly foreign intelligence services, have long been suspected of involvement in the 1990s political violence.
In his 2005 memoir, the late József Torgyán claimed the perpetrators were Slovak. Investigative journalist András Dezső, in a book on Hungary’s 1990s criminal underworld, quoted József “Fürge” Szemán – an associate of infamous mob boss Tamás Portik – saying the goal was “to bring down the left-wing government and bring the right-wing to power. The right-wing parties knew nothing about this. Only a small circle within the underworld was privy to the information. This was how they ‘did politics’.”
Fidesz has not commented on Roháč’s latest confession. There is no public evidence linking any Fidesz official to ordering the attacks, and the party never blamed its left-wing opponents for the explosions at the time.
The revelations have revived uncomfortable questions about the murky intersection of organised crime and politics in Hungary during the turbulent 1990s. While the bombings remain unprosecutable after nearly three decades, Roháč’s detailed account – delivered from prison – adds the most direct testimony yet to one of the country’s most mysterious pre-election scandals.
Atlatszo, an independent investigative journalism platform, described the confession as a significant development in understanding how violence was allegedly used as a political tool during Hungary’s first full decade of democracy. Whether Roháč’s forthcoming book will provide definitive proof of who commissioned the attacks – and whether any foreign or domestic actors beyond the criminal underworld were involved – remains to be seen.
The original article in Hungarian with EUalive’s partner Atlatszo can be found here.
Caption: Viktor Orbán at the Fidesz hadquarters looking at the damage caused by the explosion. Scan of an 1998 issue of Népszava [Atlatszo]
Updated: March 19, 2026 - 07:10
