Hungary President Pardons Far-Right Terrorist Before Pope Visit
Gyorgy Budahazy
Photographer: Stringer/AFP/Getty Images
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Hungary’s president pardoned a far-right figure convicted of terrorism hours before meeting Pope Francis in Budapest, a decision that risks damaging the optics of the pontiff’s visit with a highly charged domestic issue.
The pardon, issued late Thursday by President Katalin Novak, came on the eve of the Pope’s three-day visit. Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s government has tried to play up Francis’s trip to Hungary to shore up his international image after confrontations with the US and the European Union over the war in Ukraine and accusations of democratic backsliding.