Sándor Pintér provided a taciturn answer to a question posed to him by journalists on Monday, noted a report on Index. However, this was not the case. He was brief, that's true, but at the same time far too verbose.

The reporter had asked for the opinion of the designated minister for internal affairs on Péter Gergényi's performance in regard to the police crowd dispersal measures in 2006. Pintér replied that he did not think the former Budapest deputy commissioner of the police acted illegally in conducting the crowd dispersal, but that it was in any case the responsibility of the public prosecutor to determine this. This was already twice as much of a reply as he need have given. A little more even. The correct answer from a Fidesz minister of the interior to-be should have been no more than the part following the comma: "It will be the task of the public prosecutor to determine whether or not Gergényi acted unlawfully." And no more.

It's hardly even likely that Pintér was not prepared for such a question. Such a question was on the cards, especially because up until recently he was Gergényi's business partner. Only those shot in the eye in 2006 did not see that the relationship between Pintér and Gergényi itself is a sensitive point. There is some contradiction here between Fidesz's rhetoric - which for the past fours years has regarded Gergényi as a persona non grata - and the first clause of Pintér's statement. After this "taciturn verbosity" nobody is surprised that Krisztina Morvai started hammering away again at her keyboard. An example to date:

"I was shocked to read the first statement of the Fidesz government's newly appointed minister for internal affairs. It is incredibly and indescribably frightening that the minister now responsible for controlling the police has judged to be lawful several hundred cases of brutal police violence, including shooting rubber bullets at the level of people's heads, shooting in the eyes and other physical injuries resulting in permanent disability, which the police committed on the streets of Budapest in the autumn of 2006 while under the command of Gergényi."

There is not yet even a Fidesz government, nor is Pintér the minister of internal affairs since Parliament has not even sat in session - but let's not sweat the small stuff; this is just shoddiness on Morvai's part. However, it might well be more than just oversight that she put words into Pintér's mouth which he did not actually say.

For example, there was not a word from Pintér suggesting that he regards the physical injuries causing disabilities and the brutal violence meted out by the police as lawful. He merely said that in his opinion the police chief did not commit an unlawful act. He may well not have, although of course justice can often lose its way in the labyrinth of the law so it is entirely feasible that according to the letter of the law his colleague cannot be condemned. But morally and politically he can be.

Gergényi is a symbol. He made himself into one when he said that the police do not use batons, while behind him in an enlarged photograph taken some hours earlier three policemen were using batons to beat a man lying on the ground. Perhaps he personally did nothing unlawful - I hardly think that he would have put on a ski mask and a uniform without a badge of identification so that he could break a few hands and feet among the mob just to entertain himself.

However, the way in which he excused, supported and explained obvious acts of unlawfulness (for which József Bencze, chief commissioner of the police, subsequently apologized) and thus probably encouraged those members of the police that had gone off the rail, qualifies as complicity, at least my modest sense of law is telling me. This is my personal opinion - I can express it without worrying since I only represent myself - so I can't embarrass anybody else if it turns out that I'm wrong. However, since Monday Sándor Pintér has represented not just himself but also that political community which won a mandate of two thirds and to whom he owes his future post of minister.

Voters ticked the box for Fidesz in the belief that, for the party, the events of autumn 2006 would be seen as a tragic series of events awaiting an investigation, for which those culpable would be named and punished. Fortunately, this is indeed the intention, which is evidently clear from the second half of Pintér's statement.

It is a shame that we have to wait longer for the light when the fuse is blown by someone because of one careless move.