A HUNGARIAN man has been arrested on suspicion of killing four relatives and wounding three others with a machete, before being captured by a special forces unit.
Officials named the suspect as Jutas Csanad Horvath (24). He was found hiding in bushes close to the scene of the killings in Kulcs, a village beside the Danube about 60km from Budapest.
Police spokesman Laszlo Garamvolgyi said Horvath had probably used a machete in the attack and was receiving medical treatment for injuries he suffered during the incident.
“There were several wounds on the bodies of the victims caused by a thrusting and cutting tool . . . it was a brutal act, that’s all I can say,” Mr Garamvolgyi told reporters.
Hungary’s anti-terrorism unit scrambled to the scene after reports that Horvath was holding hostages in the family home. Some 135 officers took part in the operation to seal the area, and police boats patrolled the Danube while helicopters hovered over Kulcs.
Police entered the house when it was established that Horvath had fled.
Inside, they discovered that he had killed his grandparents, father and brother, and had badly injured his sister, mother and another relative. Officials said the injured relatives were not well enough for questioning.
“The tragedy occurred in an ordinary family,” said the mayor of Kulcs, Csaba Kiss, adding that the family did not have particularly close ties with the local community.
“We are shocked, paralysed, we never thought this could happen in such a quiet little village,” said neighbour Mihaly Sinka. “Had I left my house two minutes earlier, he could have slaughtered me.”
The killings came three weeks after another deadly incident made lurid headlines in Hungary, when a 21-year-old man stabbed his mother to death and attacked his father before throwing himself out of a 10th-floor window.
