Ilaria Salis, a school teacher by trade from Milan, Italy, was arrested in Budapest in February 2023 for allegedly taking part in the organized attack by the far-left group Antifa on attendees of an event commemorating the anniversary of the siege of the Buda castle by the Soviet forces in 1945. And now, it seems we will have to use the word ‘allegedly’ indefinitely since she will not stand trial—Salis’ far-left green alliance Alleanza Verdi e Sinistra (AVS) managed to get above the parliamentary threshold.
Since Salis led their EP ticket, she will serve as a Member of the European Parliament, and thus will get immunity.
AVS got 6.8 per cent of the popular vote, the least of the six parties that qualified for the European Parliament from Italy. However, due to the country’s large population, that will still grant them six seats in Strasbourg. Italy delegates a total of 76 MEPs.
The far-left party picked Salis, who had no prior political experience, as their leading EP candidate in the wake of the international backlash for the conditions she was kept in while in custody in Hungary.
Ilaria Cucchi, a Senator of Sinistra Italiana, one of the parties in the two-party coalition that nominated the Antifa activist, celebrated the victory in a Facebook post dedicated to Salis. However, as the comments under her post attest, not every Italian is happy with the developments. Some voice their discontent that a ‘criminal’ will have a lucrative career in politics instead of facing justice.
And, as it turns out, Salis’ adventure in Budapest was not her first run-in with the law.
As the Hungarian newspaper Magyar Nemzet reports, Salis has had police reports filed against her for aggressive behaviour multiple times in her home country of Italy before the Budapest incident. Additionally, she has amassed a €90,000 debt in unpaid rent for an apartment she refused to vacate.
The Italian electorate took a major shift to the right with the election of Giorgia Meloni of the Fratelli d’Italia party in 2022. FDI also won the EP election last Sunday, taking 28.8 per cent of the popular vote, four points ahead of the centre-left Democratic Party.
Does all this mean that Salis got away with her conduct scot-free?
No, not entirely. She spent 15 months in jail awaiting trial between February 2023 and May 2024. She was released on house arrest after placing a bond for 16 million HUF (€40,000). While she will not have to stay on house arrest nor stand trial, she will still likely have to relinquish her bond. So, with 15 months spent in jail and relinquishing €40,000 in bond, some semblance of justice was served after all.
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