BUDAPEST, Hungary: Hungary Wednesday defended its treatment of an Italian woman awaiting trial on assault charges after she was pictured in court with her wrists and ankles chained.
This drew a rebuke from the Italian government, which accused the Budapest authorities of going “too far”.
Images of Ilaria Salis, 39, with her hands and feet shackled as she sat in court on Monday, made headlines in Italy the next day.
The teacher from Monza near Milan was arrested in Budapest last February and accused of attacking neo-Nazis.
She was charged with three attempted assaults and accused of being part of an extreme left-wing organization after a counter-demonstration against a neo-Nazi rally.
“Sure, she was confined in the courtroom and yes, she has already spent 11 months in custody,” Hungarian government spokesman Zoltan Kovacs wrote on X, formerly Twitter, on Wednesday.
“But ‘inhumane’? Not really, no. Do I take it seriously because of the gravity of the crime she’s accused of? More like,” he added.
Salis denies the charges, for which she could be imprisoned for up to 11 years.
Her father, Roberto Salis, said his daughter was treated “like an animal”, while Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani told RAI radio station that the teacher’s treatment was “inappropriate”.
Roberto Salis said his daughter lived in “inhumane” conditions at the maximum security prison in a vermin-infested cell with a lack of food and hygiene.
“The conditions of the suspect’s detention correspond to all EU standards, both in terms of health and the care provided,” argued Kovács.
The matter has reached the highest levels of government, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni raised the matter in a telephone conversation with her Hungarian counterpart Victor Orban, the Italian news agency AGI reported on Tuesday.
The Hungarian chargé d’affaires was summoned to the Italian Foreign Ministry to give an explanation.
“We are in the European Union and there are civil rights that must be respected,” Tajani said on Tuesday.
Hungary’s prison service called the accusations in both countries’ media “lies” after organizing a press visit to the cell Salis shares with seven other detainees.
As it is a prison, it “does not offer the services of a multi-star hotel”, Mihaly Kovacs, head of the prison service, was quoted as saying by the MTI news agency.
