The killing
On the morning of November 1, 1996, József Prisztás was killed outside a property on Ladik Street in Budapest's third district. Court summaries and later reporting describe a planned attack in which Prisztás had been brought to the location and was shot as he was getting into or standing beside his vehicle.
The homicide became one of the prominent cases associated with Hungary's violent organized-crime environment of the 1990s. That broader context is relevant, but it does not by itself prove who ordered or carried out a particular killing. The criminal case therefore depended on the evidence presented against the individual defendants.
The prosecution theory
Prosecutors alleged that Tamás Portik ordered the killing after a financial dispute connected with figures in Budapest's criminal underworld. István Hatvani was prosecuted as the direct shooter, while Ferenc Fazekas was accused of helping bring Prisztás to the place where the attack occurred.
The defendants denied criminal responsibility. The case went through lengthy litigation, including an earlier first-instance judgment that was set aside and a repeated proceeding. That history matters because an early conviction was not the final word.
The 2016 final judgments
In May 2016, the Budapest Court of Appeal imposed final fifteen-year prison sentences on Portik as instigator and Hatvani as the person found to have carried out the murder. The appellate proceeding followed a repeated trial after an earlier judgment had been annulled.
Fazekas's position followed a separate procedural path. In November 2016, after earlier acquittals, Hungary's supreme judicial forum imposed a final ten-year prison sentence for aiding the murder. By the end of that litigation, all three men had final convictions connected with Prisztás's killing.
Roháč's later confession
The apparent closure of the case was disrupted when Jozef Roháč, already imprisoned for other serious crimes, gave a statement claiming that he had shot Prisztás and that the assignment had come from someone else. Because that account directly challenged the finding that Hatvani was the gunman, Hungarian courts permitted extraordinary reopened proceedings.
A first-instance reopening judgment in February 2020 accepted the challenge as to Hatvani and acquitted him, while rejecting the reopening for Portik and Fazekas. That was not the end of the process. Prosecutors appealed, arguing that the new account was not reliable enough to overturn the established judgment.
The 2021 appellate decision
On February 16, 2021, the Budapest Court of Appeal reversed Hatvani's acquittal in the reopened case and rejected the reopening for him as well. The court found the first-instance reasoning unsupported and declined to treat Roháč's confession as sufficient to displace the earlier final findings.
Contemporary legal reporting summarized the result clearly: the extraordinary reopening did not change the underlying convictions. The defense indicated that it would pursue further review, but the reviewed material does not support describing Roháč's claim as a judicially established replacement for the original case findings.
Why the reopening matters
The later proceedings illustrate why a true-crime archive should distinguish a confession from a proven fact. A person can claim responsibility for a crime after another defendant has been convicted, but courts still test that claim against the rest of the evidentiary record. Here, the claim was significant enough to reopen the case, yet the appellate court ultimately rejected it as a basis for undoing the convictions.
For that reason, this dossier classifies the case as Solved / Adjudicated while preserving the unusual procedural history. It does not erase the fact that the identity of the shooter was forcefully contested during the extraordinary proceedings.
Timeline
November 1, 1996: József Prisztás is shot dead in Budapest.
2014: an early first-instance judgment is issued; later appellate review orders a repeated proceeding.
May 2016: Tamás Portik and István Hatvani receive final fifteen-year prison sentences in the repeated case.
November 2016: Ferenc Fazekas receives a final ten-year prison sentence for aiding the murder.
2017–2018: Jozef Roháč gives statements claiming that he was the shooter, prompting a request to reopen the case.
February 14, 2020: the first-instance reopening court acquits Hatvani while rejecting the challenge for Portik and Fazekas.
February 16, 2021: the Budapest Court of Appeal reverses Hatvani's acquittal and rejects the reopening as to him as well.
Current status
The case remains classified Solved / Adjudicated. Portik, Hatvani and Fazekas received final prison sentences in the original criminal proceedings, and the later extraordinary reopening did not ultimately replace those judgments. Roháč's confession remains part of the procedural history, not a finding that this archive can present as established fact.
Sources
- Kúria — case information on the Prisztás homicide proceedings
- 24.hu — May 26, 2016 report on the final appellate sentences for Portik and Hatvani
- Infostart / prosecution statement — February 16, 2021 reopened-proceeding appellate decision
- Telex — detailed reporting on the 2021 retrial decision and Roháč's contested confession
- Jogi Fórum — March 3, 2021 legal summary of the reopened proceedings