BRUSSELS (LifeSiteNews) — An Italian MEP may face trial in Hungary over alleged Antifa-linked street assaults in Budapest.
Ilaria Salis MEP, 41, was arrested in Budapest in February 2023 and accused of joining the Hammerbande, a German militant group tied to Antifa. The European Parliament will decide next week whether to lift her parliamentary immunity, opening the way for prosecution in Budapest.
Prosecutors say members targeted nine people they thought “looked like” neo-Nazis based on clothing and violently assaulted them with telescopic batons and hammers. One 61-year-old man suffered a fractured skull and lasting facial paralysis.
Hungarian authorities charged Salis with three counts of attempted assault and membership in an extremist organization.
She was moved to house arrest after spending more than a year in prison. Her 2024 election to the European Parliament with Italy’s Greens and Left Alliance granted her immunity and allowed her to return to Italy.
On September 23, the Parliament’s Legal Affairs committee will decide whether to recommend removing that immunity. If approved, the full chamber is expected to vote in Strasbourg on October 7.
Conservative MEPs have said that the case is straightforward. Hungarian MEP Enikő Győri posted images of an injured victim, writing, “Ilaria Salis pretends to be the victim. This is not the case.”
“She escaped justice using parliamentary immunity,” Győri continued. She is not accused for political reasons but for carrying out a serious assault against citizens.
Salis insists the charges are political. In a recent statement on X, she called Hungary “an increasingly fascist and oppressive autocratic country” and warned that lifting her immunity would mean “handing me over to a show trial orchestrated by the political power” without a fair hearing.
Hungarian government officials dismissed those claims. Zoltán Kovács, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s spokesman, responded to Salis online by posting the GPS coordinates of Márianosztra prison.
Orbán announced Hungary will formally classify Antifa as a terrorist organisation. “They came here, they beat peaceful people on the streets, some were beaten half to death, and then they went to Brussels to become MEPs,” Orbán said.
The vote has divided parties in Brussels. Orbán’s Patriots for Europe bloc, joined by the centre-right European People’s Party and the European Conservatives and Reformists, are expected to back lifting immunity. The Greens and Left Alliance, by contrast, plan to frame the proceedings as another sign of Hungary’s alleged weak rule-of-law record.
The committee’s recommendation will set the stage for a full parliamentary decision next month, determining whether Salis faces trial in Budapest or continues her term in Brussels free from prosecution.
