Hungary FM says surprised by Salis 'interference'

(ANSA) - ROME, FEB 28 - Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said after meeting Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani in Rome Wednesday that he had been "surprised" by alleged Italian interference in the case of Ilaria Salis, an antifascist militant accusd of attacking two NeoNazis a a year ago whose detention conditions in Budapest prompted Rome to protest to the Hungarian government. Salis' father has been trying to get her moved to Italy under house 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 house arrest in Budapest. Footage of her being led into court on a chain with her hands and ankles cuffed caused an outcry in Italy. The 39-year-old Monza elementary school teacher is facing up to 24 years in jail for the alleged attack on the neoNazis 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 come to attack innocent people in the street and said he hoped she would get her "deserved punishment". He said she was "not a martyr". (ANSA).