Premier Giorgia Meloni said Thursday
that Italy was asking for Ilaria Salis's rights to be respected
after footage of her being led by a chain into a courtroom in
Budapest with her hands and ankles cuffed caused an outcry in
Italy over the treatment of the 39-year-old Monza elementary
school teacher and antifascist activist who faces up to 24 years
in jail for an alleged attack on two Hungarian neoNazis last
February.
"We are asking to verify respect for Ilaria Salis's rights,"
said Meloni after Thursday's EU summit and her meeting with her
friend and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban on the case.
Meloni said being shackled "is a treatment practised in various
Western States, (but) we don't do it.
"It happens in various States, even Western ones," she
reiterated, "but it's not our custom, they are certainly images
that have an impact, but it works like that in certain other
sovereign States".
"Since the beginning the government has provided all the
assistance possible," to Salis and her family, the premier
added.
Meloni said she hoped for a "speedy trial for Salis and that she
is proven innocent".
She said she had asked Orban for "respect for Salis and a fair
trial".
Italy is expected to ask for the militant to be transferred to
Italy after a conviction, and to be placed under house arrest
if, as Rome desires, she is placed under home detention in
Hungary.
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