Hungarian PM defends covert past

The Hungarian prime minister, Peter Medgyessy, has defended his record in front of a parliamentary committee investigating his links with the secret services under communism.

Mr Medgyessy - a former communist official who leads a centre-left government - said he had simply done his job and denied writing incriminating reports about individuals.

He recently admitted having been a counter-espionage officer in the early 1980s, but said he had worked to ensure Hungary's financial independence from the Soviet Union.

Mr Medgyessy later became a finance minister in the last communist government.

Allegations about his past first surfaced in a pro-opposition newspaper Magyar Nemzet, which accused him of links with the former secret police.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service