President Sergio Mattarella told Roberto Salis, the father of 39-year-old Italian anti-fascist Ilaria Salis on trial in Budapest for allegedly attacking two neo-Nazis over a year ago, that he had been "hoping for different days" after Hungarian authorities rejected her request for house arrest on Thursday, sources at the Quirinale said on Saturday.
During their telephone call on Saturday morning Mattarella reportedly told Salis that he understood his state of mind and expressed his closeness, as well as assuring him that he would do everything within his power to help.
On an operational level this is limited and is exercised through the government, he is said to have added.
Salis reportedly expressed his gratitude for the call and for the speed of Mattarella's response to his Friday letter, which he said aimed to highlight the disparity in treatment of two Italian citizens.
They are his daughter, who is on trial in Hungary and being held under what she claims are "inhuman" conditions, and her co-defendant Gabriele Marchesi, who was freed in Milan on Thursday after an appeals court rejected Hungary's request to hand him over.
The 23-year-old had been arrested in the Lombard capital on the basis of a European arrest warrant and had been under house arrest since November.
"The difference between our system, inspired by European values, and their system" has led to this inequality, Mattarella reportedly replied, adding: "This disparity has struck our public opinion".
The president reportedly ended the five-minute call by telling Salis that that they would be able to talk again in due course.
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