FILE -Péter Magyar, a rising challenger to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, addresses people at a campaign rally in the rural city of Debrecen, Hungary, on May 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Denes Erdos, File)
ERDBUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — A European Parliament committee rejected on Tuesday a bid by the Hungarian prime minister that would lift the legal immunity from prosecution for one of its lawmakers who is Viktor Orbán 's main political rival.
Péter Magyar, who heads , Tisza, represents the most serious challenge to Orbán since the right-wing populist leader took power in 2010.
Orbán's government had requested that Magyar's immunity be lifted so he could face charges for alleged offenses that include theft of a mobile phone in a Budapest nightclub and defamation against a member of Orbán's Fidesz party.
Once an insider within Orbán's political circle, Magyar broke with Fidesz to launch Tisza. Recent polls suggest it has overtaken Fidesz amid a chronically weak economy and .
Ahead of Hungarian elections next April, Orbán has launched a against his rival, leading some analysts and domestic critics to believe he may be laying the groundwork to try and disqualify Magyar from the vote.
Responding to the committee's decision to uphold Magyar's immunity, Orbán wrote on Facebook Tuesday that it was “Shameful, disgraceful.”
“Today in Brussels, it was proven that the leader of the opposition is Brussels’ man,” Orbán said.
In the closed-door vote, the European Parliament's legal affairs committee also blocked Hungary's attempt to strip immunity from two other lawmakers, including head of the Hungarian opposition party Democratic Coalition, Klára Dobrev.
It also upheld the immunity of Italian lawmaker Ilaria Salis, who faced prosecution in Hungary for her alleged role in assaults by antifascist activists on far-right demonstrators in Budapest in 2023.
Salis was jailed for more than a year in Hungary before , granting her immunity. Hungarian authorities sought Salis's return to Hungary for trial, where prosecutors sought an 11-year prison sentence.
David Cormand, a French member of the European Parliament with the Greens coalition, told The Associated Press that he had voted to uphold Salis' immunity.
“The European Parliament has today sent a clear message: it will not be used as a tool for intimidation by Viktor Orbán’s authoritarian regime," Cormand said. "By protecting Ilaria Salis, we have protected the integrity of the European Parliament, democracy and the rights of European citizens. This is a victory for the rule of law.”
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Associated Press writer Samuel McNeil in Brussels contributed to this report.
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