BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán on Saturday drew a direct link between immigration and an attack in Germany in which a man drove into a Christmas market full of holidaymakers, killing at least five people and injuring 200 others.
During a rare appearance before independent media in Budapest, Orbán expressed his condolences to the families of the victims of what he called the “terrorist act” on Friday evening in the city of Magdeburg. But the long-serving Hungarian leader, one of the European Union’s most outspoken critics, also suggested the 27-nation bloc’s migration policies were to blame.
According to German authorities, the suspect, a 50-year-old Saudi doctor, is under investigation. He has lived in Germany since 2006 and practices medicine. The suspect described himself as a former Muslim and shared dozens of tweets and retweets every day focusing on anti-Islam themes, criticizing the religion and congratulating Muslims who had left the faith.
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Orbán claimed without evidence that such attacks only occurred in Europe after 2015, when hundreds of thousands of migrants and refugees entered the EU after largely fleeing war and violence in the Middle East and Africa.
Europe has seen numerous militant attacks decades ago, including train bombings in Madrid, Spain, in 2004 and attacks on central London in 2005.
Yet the nationalist leader declared that “there is no doubt that there is a link” between migration and terrorism, claiming that the EU leadership “wants Magdeburg to happen to Hungary too.”
Orbán’s anti-immigrant government has taken a tough stance on people entering Hungary since 2015, building fences protected by barbed wire on Hungary’s southern border with Serbia and Croatia.
In June, the European Court of Justice ordered Hungary to pay a fine of 200 million euros ($216 million) for persistently violating the bloc’s asylum rules, and another 1 million euros per day until the country brings its policies into line with EU law.
Orbán, a right-wing populist who has consistently been at odds with the EU, has previously vowed that Hungary would not change its migration and asylum policies regardless of any rulings by the EU’s highest court.
On Saturday he vowed that his government will fight back against what he called EU efforts to “impose” immigration policies on Hungary.
