Hungarian police have arrested an executive at world swimming’s governing body for the murder of a media tycoon in Budapest 20 years ago but suspect Tamas Gyarfas is innocent, his lawyer said on Wednesday.
Police have never resolved who ordered the murder of Hungarian mogul Janos Fenyo who was sprayed with submachine gun bullets at a stop light in Budapest in February 1998. The killing shocked Hungary, which was emerging from Communist rule.
Gyarfas, 69, has for decades been a driving force behind Hungary’s position as a power in world swimming and he is a member of the Lausanne-based International Swimming Federation’s (FINA) eight-person executive, according to FINA’s website.
In the 1990s, he and Fenyo vied for control of a Hungarian television production company, according to public records.
Police on Tuesday said they had detained and questioned a man they named only as Tamas Gy. They said in a separate statement Gy had been formally arrested.
“Tamas Gyarfas has announced a complaint against the accusation and denies the act attributed to him in the strongest terms,†his lawyer Janos Banati said in a statement that confirmed that police arrested Gyarfas.
Read Reuters
