The Court of Appeal in Budapest on Wednesday set bail for an Italian woman imprisoned in Hungary for allegedly attacking right-wing extremist demonstrators last year.

The court said in a statement released on Thursday that the  Italian woman faces up to 11 years in prison.

Left-wing activist Ilaria Salis, a 39-year-old Milan teacher, would be released on conditional release in Budapest if a bail of 16 million forints ($45,000) is posted within three months.

The Hungarian public prosecutor’s office accuses Salis and a German co-defendant of assaulting and injuring a group of right-wing extremists with other people from the left-wing scene in February 2023.

The 29-year-old German co-defendant was sentenced to three years in prison in January after she pleaded guilty.

The teacher from Milan describes herself as an anti-fascist.

The right-wing group wanted to commemorate an action by Hitler’s Waffen SS, the notorious stormtroopers and Hungarian soldiers in 1945.

Last month, it was announced that Ms Salis would stand as a candidate for the Italian Alliance of the Greens and the Left in the European elections on June 9.

During her 15 months in prison, Ms Salis criticised the conditions in the Hungarian remand prison.

At the start of her trial in January, she was brought before the court shackled.

This led to diplomatic tensions between Rome and Budapest, with Italy summoning the Hungarian ambassador to Rome in January over the case.

According to the court ruling on Wednesday, Salis must remain under house arrest in Budapest, monitored by an electronic ankle tag, until the end of the trial following her possible release on bail. 

(dpa/NAN)