Hungarian journalist says recovering after beating

BUDAPEST, June 24 (Reuters) A Hungarian investigative journalist said today she was recovering in hospital after being attacked on Friday night.

Iren Karman, 40, who has written a book entitled ''Facing the Mafia'' on illegal oil dealings and police corruption, was pushed into a car while walking home, beaten, and left by the Danube river, she told public television MTV by telephone.

''The background is that I had already been threatened a few months ago anonymously by email,'' Karman said, adding that her car had also been broken into.

''It could be felt that certain people did not like that investigative work was being done on oil deals.'' The oil deals in the 1990s, records of which have been classified for 85 years, involved removing the red dye added to subsidised heating oil in order to sell it as more expensive diesel.

Police said yesterday an angler had found a woman by the river and she was taken to hospital with life-threatening injuries, but did not identify her.

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