The address where Ilaria Salis is spending house arrest in Budapest, it was announced yesterday by the Hungarian judge. This puts her, but not only her, at risk. The 39-year-old anti-fascist activist, on trial for the attack on some neo-Nazi militants which occurred in Budapest on 11 February 2023, is in fact a guest of some Italian citizens. “There are also some minors in the house with them, who are now at risk.”
The father reported it, Roberto Salis, who is in Aosta for an appointment in the electoral campaign of Avs, Alleanza Verdi e Sinistra, the party for which Ilaria is a candidate for the next European elections. Given the difficulties in finding accommodation with the type of rental contract required to be able to get Salis out of prison, “we had to find an alternative solution, which fortunately manifested itself thanks to the fact that some Italian citizens said: we’ll take it us at home. Because there is also humanity in this world”, said the father.
“These people – he said – made themselves known by writing an email to the embassy, which then forwarded it to Ilaria’s lawyers”. So “we made contact with these gentlemen” and at the embassy “we then asked: can you help us find out who these gentlemen are? They are registered in the Aire (the register of Italians abroad, ed.), I imagine you have contacts. They told us: no absolutely, we can’t do these things.” So, continues Roberto Salis, “we made contact, these gentlemen are obviously wonderful people, they become my brothers and sisters. But now they too are at risk.”
The hypothesis that Ilaria Salis could serve out her house arrest in Italy appears remote for now. “It’s out of the question” says the activist’s Hungarian lawyer clearly, Gyorgy Magyar. “The verdict of the Court of Appeal is clear, Ilaria must remain in the assigned apartment and can only leave it with the judge’s permission, for example, to go to vote”. The election of Salis at the European elections on 8 and 9 June it could change the cards on the table. “We are waiting for the result of the European vote, which could change things” continues Magyar. “In the meantime, the trial continues.” The sentence, given the current pace of the proceedings, is expected next spring.
In Aosta the public asked a Roberto Salis what he thought of the welcome given by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni to the prisoner Chico Forti, sentenced to life imprisonment for murder in the United States, wondering if there could be similar treatment even if Ilaria returned to Italy. “I’m very little interested in the topic – he replied – because Ilaria certainly won’t accept being picked up and taken to Italy by Meloni. Rather, I’ll pick her up on my motorbike”.
