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The Hungarian government is releasing thousands of foreign prisoners currently serving their sentences in Hungary for human trafficking. The only condition is that they leave Hungary within 72 hours.

This is evident from a regulation issued by Prime Minister Viktor Orban at the end of last month. The release of the foreign smugglers came as a surprise and is in no way related to the return of the offenders to their home countries and serving their remaining sentences there.

The private TV channel RTL-Klub showed a hidden camera report on Thursday evening showing five people getting out of a minibus belonging to the local penitentiary near the train station in Szombathely (western Hungary). At the request of the broadcaster, the Ministry of the Interior did not deny that the people shown were released smugglers.

Hungarian criminal law inherently provides for long prison sentences for people smuggling. The sentences range from 2 to 20 years. Hungary is located on the so-called Balkan route, which brings refugees and migrants from Turkey to Western Europe.

Chancery Minister Gergely Gulyas justified the move by saying that imprisoning foreign criminals would be too expensive. According to official figures, there are currently 2,600 foreigners in Hungary, most of whom are criminals convicted of human trafficking.

The news portal “hvg.hu” reported on an Afghan smuggler who left for France after his release. But according to the portal, many Romanian, Bulgarian and Serbian smugglers would also go to Austria or another Western country after leaving prison in Hungary. (aeg/sda/dpa)