Italian anti-Fascist activist Ilaria
Salis on Friday appeared in a Budapest court for her trial on
charges of assaulting extreme right-wing militants for the first
time without the chains she was shackled with for previous
hearings.
Salis's conditions of detention have sparked protests from Italy
after she was repeatedly led into court on a chain with her
hands and ankles cuffed, a procedure Hungary says is standard
but which aroused indignation here.
The Green-Left Alliance (AVS) recently made her one of its
candidates for next month's European elections.
A Hungarian court subsequently accepted Salis's plea to be
released to house arrest and she was let out of Budapest's
Gyorskocsi utca maximum security prison on Thursday after 15
months in jail.
Her family and her supporters hope this will make it possible
for her to apply to return to Italy and stay under house arrest
at home.
The 39-year-old Monza elementary school teacher is accused of
being part of a German-led hammer gang that allegedly targeted
three neo-Nazis on their Day of Honour commemorating an SS
regiment's "heroic" resistance against the Red Army in February
2023.
The Hungarian prosecutor has asked for a prison term of 11 years
but Salis's father says she risks as long as 24 years in jail on
charges of attempted murder.
"I want to thank all the people who supported me," Salis said
before the start of the hearing, after arriving at the court in
a taxi together with her parents.
Journalists and a group of friends, including hugely popular
Italian cartoonist Zerocalcare, were waiting for her outside the
court.
If she is elected to the European Parliament, Salis may be
eligible for parliamentary immunity.
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