"The crimes in question are serious, both in Hungary and internationally. The measures adopted in the proceedings are required by law and appropriate to the seriousness of the accusation of the crime committed."
Zoltan Kovacs, Viktor Orban's spokesperson, writes this on X on the case of Ilaria Salis.
"The credibility of Ilaria Salis is highly questionable, as demonstrated, among other things, by the false statements she made about her education, her family situation and her personal relationships, which later turned out to be false," he added .
"We are evaluating the possibility of immediately appealing to the European Court in Strasbourg for the violation of Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which has already cost Hungary other sentences": this is what the lawyer Eugenio Losco, one of the Italian lawyers who assists
Ilaria Salis
, the 39-year-old from Milan who has been detained in Budapest for almost a year.
"The violation is obvious, given how she was brought with a leash into the courtroom", continues the lawyer Losco, who returned to Italy yesterday while Ilaria Salis' parents are still in Budapest where this morning they will meet first their daughter in prison and then the the Italian ambassador to Hungary Manuel Jacoangeli.
"In the meantime, let's move forward trying to understand what the government's commitment consists of to reach the goal of house arrest", concluded Losco.
Yesterday evening the Hungarian Attorney General went to visit Ilaria Salis in prison to check on her conditions, confirmed Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani on 'Cinque Minuti' on Rai1, recalling that today "her parents also went to visit her".
For further information ANSA Agency 'The European Chamber debate on the Salis case will be held on Monday in Strasbourg' - News - Ansa.it Sources, on the agenda after the opening of the proceedings, approval from the group leaders expected today (ANSA)
"We're starting to see some light": on the phone with ANSA Roberto Salis defines himself as "moderately optimistic" after meeting his daughter Ilaria in prison, who has been detained in Budapest for about a year on charges of having attacked two far-right militants.
"He is still enthusiastic about having seen his friends on Monday and some good signs are also coming from prison where his conditions have improved", explained Salis who then met again with the Italian ambassador in Budapest: "He told us about the meeting with the Hungarian Minister of Justice, I think everyone is moving in the right direction."
Last June, Hungarian judges already rejected the request for the transfer of Ilaria Salis to house arrest in Italy
, made by the 39-year-old's lawyers.
The reason was the danger of escape.
From what we understand, the request could be re-evaluated only following a prior application of house arrest in Hungary, upon decision of the judges: only following this provision, therefore, could the possibility of applying the Council's framework decision be taken into consideration European Union for the mutual recognition of decisions on 'alternative measures to preventive detention'.
Lega: 'In 2017 he attacked our gazebo in Monza'.
Ilaria Salis' lawyer: 'Acquitted'
"The images of Ilaria Salis chained in Hungary are shocking. On 18 February 2017, in Monza, a Lega gazebo was attacked by dozens of violent people from social centers -
so a note from the Lega
-, and the two girls present were attacked with insults and spat by a large group of troublemakers. For those facts Ilaria Salis ended up on trial, recognized by the League militants. Her vicissitudes offer the opportunity to reiterate that the legitimate exercise of dissent can never lead to episodes of violence, especially as those implemented against defenseless young people attacked by a pack as happened in Monza".
"Ilaria Salis was acquitted for not having committed the crime in relation to the episode of the attack on the Lega gazebo in 2017": this is what her lawyer,
Eugenio Losco,
clarified to ANSA
.
"Mrs. Salis was not identified at all by the two League militants but only identified as a participant in the procession that took place that day in Monza from a video produced in the documents. The judge in the sentence specified that she appears to have only participated in the procession without in any way having participated in the criminal action of other people nor having in any way encouraged or supported others to do so".
"In the sentence - recalls the lawyer Losco - the judge wrote that 'the mere participation in the procession without participation or incitement to the criminal action cannot constitute an insolvency hypothesis, not even a moral one' and therefore there is no issue that concerns it ".
Lawyer Losco explains in fact that that day Ilaria Salis took part in the procession in Monza from which some people broke away and damaged the Lega gazebo, without her being involved in any way in that action, as established by the trial.
"Lawyer Roberto Zingari assists one of the League militants attacked and insulted in Monza in 2017: he is determined to promote actions and use all legal instruments to shed full light on that episode of very serious political violence",
specifies the office press of Matteo Salvin
i's party.
"Physical aggression, insults and spitting on a girl cannot go unpunished" explains the lawyer Zingari.
"
The League was the offended party and could have appeared in court as a civil party but it did not do so - the lawyer Eugenio
Losco
commented
to ANSA on the words of the lawyer Zingari -. It was the prosecutor himself who asked for absolution and therefore did not appeal when the judge acquitted all the defendants, including Ilaria Salis."
"In addition to the two militants - continues the lawyer Losco - Federico Arena, secretary of the League of Monza, also testified, and therefore the trial was widely known to the League, which in any case did not take part in civil action".
"The League, instead of fighting to avoid seeing the dignity of an Italian citizen trampled upon, starts rummaging through her past -
so dem secretary Elly Schlein
-, even before the sentence is pronounced it has already decided guilt, and puts more chains on her wrists and to the ankles of Ilaria Salis, recalling accusations on which she has already been acquitted. In this nostalgia for the Middle Ages where the presumption of innocence disappears, Salvini" makes "statements of unbearable paternalism, but if he maintains that those accused of injuries cannot be teachers, they are to ask him how someone accused of kidnapping can be a minister."
Poster by Ilaria in front of the Hungarian embassy in Rome
On the night between 30 and 31 January, a few steps from the Hungarian Embassy in Rome, the new work by street artist Laika dedicated to Ilaria Salis appeared.
The poster, displayed at the intersection of via dei Villini and via Malpighi, portrays the anti-fascist activist, a professor from Monza, breaking the chains, with the writing on her dress: "Ila resisti".
"Salis has been detained in Hungary for 11 months in inhuman conditions. The images we have seen of the courtroom seem to come from Tehran, not from a European Union country. Not even Breivik in Norway, the terrorist of the Utopia massacre who he gave the Nazi salute in the courtroom, he was tied like that", declared Laika, referring to the tragic images of Salis appearing in court chained.
"This is a violation of human rights by a member state and we cannot remain silent, doing nothing - continued the artist -; it is a demonstration of strength by a state that increasingly tends towards authoritarianism and which erases rights".
"I am proud to support Ilaria, as an activist and as an anti-fascist. This black wave that is hitting Europe must be stopped. Ilaria must be freed. Immediately", concluded Laika.
100 thousand signatures in a few hours to bring Ilaria Salis back to Italy
The online petition launched on Change.org by the "Ilaria Salis Libera Committee" has exceeded 100 thousand signatures in a few hours, asking the Italian Government and the President of the Human Rights Commission of the European Parliament to take action to bring the activist of 39 years old.
The aim of the Committee and of the collection of signatures is to ensure that "the Italian citizen Ilaria Salis can face trial in Italy for the crimes alleged against her and therefore lead to her immediate release by virtue of the clear violation of international law and of human rights that his long and painful imprisonment highlights."
Currently, Salis is locked up "in conditions incompatible with a democratic state and with international conventions on human rights and the rights of persons deprived of their liberty", say the authors of the petition.
Among the comments of those who signed, the reasons of many citizens outraged by the images arriving from Budapest: "The treatment he is suffering - we read in one of the comments - is not worthy of the European Community".
Hungary at the Milan Court: 'We treat prisoners humanely'
"If the person is handed over and taken into care, his/her placement will take place in conditions consistent with the provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights - writes the
Hungarian prison administration in an addition to the answers provided by Hungary to the Court of Justice Milan appeal
for the case of Gabriele Marchesi, co-investigator of Ilaria Salis and under house arrest in Italy -, from the United Nations recommendation on minimum guidelines for the humane treatment of arrested persons, as well as from recommendation number R2006/2 of the Council of Europe on European penitentiary rules".
"With regard to the placement of the prisoner, the consular and diplomatic representatives of the respective state in Hungary are given the possibility, after consultation, to enter the relevant penitentiary institution and inspect the conditions of detention, as well as the consulate staff of the respective state may visit the prisoner", wrote the Hungarian prison administration, responding, with a letter sent to the Court of Appeal of Milan on the Marchesi case, to a question from the Italian judges, namely the one on the "legal discipline of conversations" in prison with prisoners.
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