Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter
Szijjártó on Thursday reiterated his "shock" at the Italian
reaction to the case of Ilaria Salis, an antifascist militant
and school teacher accused of attacking two Neo-Nazis a year ago
whose detention conditions in Budapest prompted Rome to protest
to the Hungarian government, claiming she is anything but a
victim.
"I am shocked by the Italian reactions," Szijjártó wrote on
Facebook.
"This lady (Salis, ed.) has been presented here in Italy as a
kind of victim, a martyr. In Hungary people were almost killed,"
he added.
"People were almost beaten to death in the streets, and then
this lady is portrayed as a martyr or the victim of an unfair
trial. No one, no far-left group, should see Hungary as a kind
of boxing ring where they can come to plan to beat someone to
death," concluded Szijjártó.
On Wednesday the foreign minister said after meeting his Italian
counterpart Antonio Tajani in Rome that he had been "surprised"
by Italian alleged interference in the case after footage of
Salis being led into a Budapest court on a chain with her hands
and ankles cuffed caused an outcry in Italy.
Salis' father has been trying to get her moved to Italy under
house arrest but Tajani and Justice Minister Carlo Nordio said
they could not interfere with the sovereign Hungarian justice
system.
Her lawyer therefore filed a plea to have her put under house
arrest in Budapest.
The 39-year-old Monza elementary school teacher is facing up to
24 years in jail for the alleged attack on the neo Nazis at
their annual commemoration of an allegedly heroic Nazi regiment
that fought off Russian troops.
Szijjártó said Wednesday that Salis was a radical who had come
to attack innocent people in the street and said he hoped she
would get her "deserved punishment".
He said she was "not a martyr".
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