In connection with last year's attacks, Budapest police issued international arrest warrants against 14 perpetrators.Continue reading
Hungary
Parliamentary Immunity of Antifa Activist Ilaria Salis at Risk
The man who is accused of taking part in the Budapest attacks in 2023 with Ilaria Salis and other accomplices has been arrested in France. The Paris court will decide on Tuesday whether to extradite the Milanese activist Rexino Arzaj, known as “
The man who is accused of taking part in the Budapest attacks in 2023 with Ilaria Salis and other accomplices has been arrested in France. The Paris court will decide on Tuesday whether to extradite the Milanese activist Rexino Arzaj, known as “Gino,” who was born in Albania but raised in Italy, to Hungary, Magyar Nemzet reports.
Referring to Italian newspapers, Magyar Nemzet writes that the arrest of her accomplice could mark a major turning point in the political career of Ilaria Salis, an Italian woman who went from Antifa activist to Member of European Parliament (MEP).
Fact
The case of Ilaria Salis dates back to February 2023, when a group of Antifa thugs attacked people, selected at random or by their clothing, suspecting them to be nationalist protesters, in broad daylight in the public spaces of the Hungarian capital. The group attacked without saying they were doing it because of the clothing and for their presumption about the victims’ political approach. A total of four attacks took place at that time in Budapest, and it soon became clear to the police that the attacks were part of a series. One of the suspects, Italian citizen Salis, was accused of being part of the violent group and therefore was standing trial.Salis was the main defendant in the Budapest Antifa case but has been released from prison in Budapest in May this year and remained under house arrest during her trial in Hungary. Despite the trial, Salis was running as a candidate in the European Parliament (EP) elections for the Italian coalition of the Greens and Left Alliance (AVS – Alleanza Verdi e Sinistra). She was elected as MEP in June, thus gained parliamentary immunity, marking the end of over a year of legal proceedings against her.
While Salis was helped from prison in Budapest to the European Parliament, Gino has fled to France.
A European and international arrest warrant had been issued for him, accused of committing serious street attacks in Budapest together with the Hammerbande group.
Ilaria Salis, Milanese Gabriel Marchesi and German Maja T. belonged to the same anti-fascist group, the news site reports.
According to Magyar Nemzet, France would extradite the accused to Hungary, but Italian lawyers are preparing to withhold the case on the grounds of human rights. The turn of events could significantly affect Salis’ fate, because if France decides that the charges against Gino are not the result of persecution but the commission of a real crime, it will be more difficult for the EP to reject the Hungarian request.
On October 22, Hungary formally asked the EP to waive the Italian MEP’s immunity so that the legal case against him could be pursued. Salis has asked her allies to reject the withdrawal, claiming that he is the victim of a political trial. In previous press statements she has said that she is being “persecuted so that she cannot fulfill her mandate in the EP.”
If France accepts Hungary’s request for extradition, writes the news site, the chances of the EP taking the same course in the Salis case will increase.
Salis immediately expressed his solidarity with the arrested man. “Let Gino go free, no extradition! I learned, with great concern, that my friend and comrade Gino was arrested in France last week,” Salis wrote in a message posted on Facebook.
Gino is currently being held by the French authorities in a Paris prison, but could be handed over to the Hungarian authorities in a few days, a decision on which will be taken by a Paris court later today.
The German authorities decided to extradite Maja T., who is currently being held in a Budapest prison, back in July to face an investigation in Hungary into the attacks in the Hungarian capital. On the contrary, the Milan court refused to extradite Gabriele Marchesi, who is also accused of committing the street assaults, on the grounds of inhuman treatment.
Via Magyar Nemzet, Featured image: X/Ilaria Salis
The post Parliamentary Immunity of Antifa Activist Ilaria Salis at Risk appeared first on Hungary Today.
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