Budapest - Hungarian police have arrested a man who last
week appeared in a video threatening violence against police officers
and governing politicians, a spokesman for Budapest police said on
Wednesday.
The video, which was posted on news website index.hu, featured two
men who claimed that right-wing groups were arming themselves and
planning to attack government targets.
The government said last week that security services believe
extremists are preparing to launch attacks on parliament and other
targets in an escalation of the anti-government violence that rocked
Budapest last autumn.
However, the 38-year-old man said that he was drunk when the video
was made and has no recollection of making any threats.
Another man - this one masked - featured in the video, and he
claimed that right-wing groups were organized in cells like Irish
underground group the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and had access to
automatic weapons.
A warrant has been issued for the arrest of the other man, who
police say they have identified.
Unknown assailants in the early hours of Tuesday morning fired an
automatic weapon at the national police headquarters in Budapest,
although no link has been discovered with right-wing groups.
The government has become increasingly vocal about the threat of
right-wing extremists since late last year, when anti-government
protestors clashed with riot police over the course of around five
weeks.
The protests were triggered by the leak of a tape on which Prime
Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany admitted lying to the nation.
The government says that there is a real threat of an attack on
parliament on March 15, the anniversary of the 1848 revolution
against Austrian rule.
The main right-wing opposition party Fidesz has dismissed the
threat, saying the government is using it as an excuse to maintain a
police cordon that has been in place around parliament since last
October.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
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