Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán dismissed Brigadier General Zoltán Kiss, head of the Hungarian counter-intelligence service Alkotmányvédelmi Hivatal (AH), on Sept. 14, according to news portal Mandiner.
The dismissal was published in the Official Bulletin on Monday, along with the relevant paragraph of the National Security Act which gives Orbán jurisdiction over the intelligence services. The statement also contained additional information that the dismissal was at the request of Interior Minister Sándor Pintér.
The 39-year-old Kiss was appointed head of the AH in 2015 at the age of 34, the youngest ever leader of the service. Prior to his appointment, Kiss was praised by László Tasnádi, the State Secretary for Law Enforcement of the Ministry of the Interior, who has since left the Parliament’s National Security Committee.
Tasnádi, who worked as a state security officer before the change of regime, said that with the country’s security services currently consisting of mostly younger officers, his age was no obstacle to the position.
When AH moved to its new headquarters in 2019, Orbán specifically praised Kiss’s work
Title image: Brigadier General Zoltán Kiss, former director of the Hungarian counter-intelligence service Alkotmányvédelmi Hivatal (AH) during a hearing of Parliament’s National Security Committee in 2015, prior to his appointment. (MTI/Tibor Illyés)
