Hungarian Foreign Minister PéterSzijjártó on Thursday reiterated his "shock" at the Italianreaction to the case of Ilaria Salis, an antifascist militantand school teacher accused of attacking two Neo-Nazis a year agowhose detention conditions in Budapest prompted Rome to protest the Hungarian government, claiming she is anything but avictim.
"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 todeath," 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 of her has been trying to get her moved to Italy underhouse 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 housearrest 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 cometo attack innocent people in the street and said he hoped she would get her "deserved punishment".
He said she was "not a martyr".
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © Copyright ANSA