A senior Hungarian government official has said a Paris terror suspect — one of the “main organisers” of last month’s atrocities in which 130 were killed — “recruited a team” in Hungary among migrants passing through.
Although not naming the Paris terror suspect, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s chief of staff Janos Lazar said:
“One of the main organisers of the Paris terror attacks was in Keleti station in Budapest, recruiting a team from immigrants who had refused to register with Hungarian authorities.”
Keleti is the central Budapest train station from which Breitbart London’s Simon Kent reported in the summer when it was the focus of migrant movement in Hungary.
Mr. Lazar told the Budapest news conference that the suspect left Hungary with his recruits, reports The Local. He did not give further information such as when he was in the country, nor whether those he recruited actually went on to take part in the Paris attacks for which Islamic State has since claimed responsibility.
Hungary’s counter-terrorism police, TEK, have said they “do not have information that can be made public” but a French source told AFP that a rental car hired by Salah Abdeslam — alleged to be one of the Paris jihadis and currently on the run — is known to have been in Hungary on 17 September.
Belgian-born Mr. Abdeslam (pictured above) is said to have played a key logistical role in the Paris attacks and remains at large having fled the French capital after the event. It is not known whether he was actually in the vehicle in Hungary or whether he was accompanied. He was, however, registered as having been in Austria on 9 September.
According to Austrian authorities the 26-year-old was with two other men stopped as part of a routine traffic check in a car with Belgian number plates. The car was travelling south from Germany, not west from Hungary.
At the time Mr. Abdeslam claimed to be on holiday. Austrian authorities have said that his two co-travelers “have so far not been named in connection” with the Paris attacks.