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An Italian anti-fascist activist has gone on trial in Hungary for allegedly attacking neo-Nazis, in a case that has sparked tensions between the two EU allies.
Ilaria Salis, 39, arrived at the Budapest court accompanied by her father, with Italy’s ambassador and a throng of Italian journalists also in attendance. She left to applause after the court heard testimony from one of the victims and two witnesses. None of the three could personally identify Salis, as their attackers were masked.
The case has been front-page news in Italy after Salis appeared in court in January handcuffed and chained.
The teacher, from Monza, near Milan, was arrested in Budapest in February 2023 following a counter-demonstration against a neo-Nazi rally.
Her case has sparked tensions between Rome and Budapest despite the cordial relations between their far-right prime ministers, Italy’s Giorgia Meloni and Hungary’s Viktor Orbán. Rome has made several official complaints on Salis’s behalf.
Prosecutors allege that Salis travelled to Budapest specifically to carry out attacks against “unsuspecting victims identified as, or perceived as, far-right sympathisers” to deter “representatives of the far-right movement”.
She was charged with three counts of attempted assault and accused of being part of an extreme leftwing criminal organisation in the wake of a counter-demonstration against an annual neo-Nazi rally.
Salis denies the charges – which could see her jailed for up to 11 years – and says she is being persecuted for her political beliefs.
The next hearing is set for September. Salis’s lawyer Gyorgy Magyar jas complained that his client has yet to receive all the case documents in her native language.
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Salis’s father, Roberto Salis, and the Italian ambassador, Manuel Jacoangeli, also complained that Salis’s address in Budapest was read out in court, saying it put her “at risk”.
A defiant Salis told the Italian newspaper La Stampa via her father that she was “on the right side of history”.
Last month, the Italian Greens and Left Alliance (AVS) nominated Salis as its lead candidate for the European elections. If the party wins enough votes at the ballot, Salis may be able to claim parliamentary immunity, which would lead to a suspension of criminal proceedings against her.
Salis’s case has been highly politicised, and the Hungarian nationalist government has frequently commented on it. It has repeatedly denounced the media for allegedly depicting Salis as a “martyr”, instead pointing to what it called the “brutality” of her alleged crimes.
Salis’s father claims that his daughter was kept in inhumane prison conditions until January, when her case received significant media coverage. “For eight days, she was kept in a prison in a solitary cell, without being provided with toilet paper, sanitary towels and soap … in Italy, we would consider this torture,” Roberto Salis said before the trial.
The Council of Europe has criticised Hungary’s overcrowded prisons, and Hungarian officials have denied accusations of ill-treatment.
Hungary came under heavy criticism both at home and abroad over a terrorism conviction handed to a Syrian man for his role in a border riot in 2015.
Prosecutors had accused Ahmed Hamed of using a megaphone to orchestrate violence and throwing stones at Hungarian police to force them to open the border with Serbia, initially handing him a 10-year jail term.
