Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani on
Wednesday rejected Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó's
claim that there had been "interference" by Italy in the case of
Ilaria Salis, an Italian antifascist held in Budapest over an
alleged attack on two neoNazis a year ago.
Tajani said after meeting his Hungarian counterpart in Rome
Wednesday that Rome was continuing to push to make sure Salis's
detention conditions respected her human rights, as it does for
many cases of Italian citizens held abroad.
"Without any desire to interfere, but with the clear intention
of exerting pressure to verify that the conditions of detention
respect European norms that uphold the safeguarding of human
rights".
Salis's father Roberto, meanwhile, took issue with Szijjártó's
assertion that she was "not a martyr", saying that "if he means
a person who was tortured for 35 days then Ilaria certainly is a
martyr".
Salis, 39, sparked an outcry last month when she appeared in a
Budapest court being led on a chain with her hands and ankles
cuffed, and amid reports that her cell was dirty, riddled with
bugs, and unhygienic.
Roberto Salis also said she had been tortured to make her
confess to the alleged crime, which carries a term of at least
24 years in Hungary.
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