The court announced its verdict for three defendants. In February 2023, the defendants carried out attacks in Budapest against people they considered to be far-right extremists.

On Wednesday, the court sentenced the third defendant, Anna M of Germany, to two years in prison for participating in a criminal organization, suspended for five years, and expelled her from Hungary for five years.

The court convicted the fourth defendant, Maja T, of four counts of attempted life-threatening bodily harm and attempted grievous bodily harm committed for base motives, partly as a co-perpetrator and partly as an accomplice, in a criminal organization.

She was sentenced to eight years in prison and expelled from Hungary for eight years. The fifth defendant, Gabriella M, an Italian citizen, received a seven-year prison sentence for similar crimes and was expelled from Hungary for seven years.

The fourth and fifth defendants are not eligible for parole.

According to the court’s decision, the fourth defendant will remain in custody until the second instance court’s decision; the ruling is not final.

According to the previously disclosed indictment, in 2017 the defendants formed an extreme left-wing organization whose members decided to take up the ideological fight against fascism through physical violence. They practiced their attacks through regular training sessions, kept in touch with each other on the darknet, and planned their actions. They carried out an offensive in Budapest in February 2023, for which they set a 30-second time frame and assigned tasks to each member of the group.

The aim of the attacks was to deter, so they wanted to cause serious injuries. The actions were carried out in complete silence, according to a rehearsed plan, in order to make an investigation more difficult.

They wore gloves and masks and changed clothes while leaving the scene.

In connection with events planned by right-wing groups in Budapest on February 11, 2023, ten people representing anti-fascist ideology arrived in Hungary from Germany and Italy.

According to the investigation, the attacks could have caused life-threatening injuries. The court handed down a verdict in absentia against Gabriella M and Anna M.

The fourth defendant, Maja T was present at the trial. In her statement to the court, she complained that “the Hungarian state, which does not tolerate dissent,” had created an atmosphere of fear around her and labeled her a terrorist, and that she had been held in custody in Hungary for 18 months despite the German Federal Constitutional Court declaring her extradition unlawful.

Maja T said that detention in solitary confinement and regular sleep deprivation constituted torture and served the purpose of forcing a confession, and that the proceedings and trial were politically motivated.

“The aim of the proceedings was to reinforce the narrative that Antifa is a murderous organization,” Maja T said. At the trial, the defense attorney for the fifth defendant also called the case politically motivated. The attorney said that the political leadership in power since 2010 was putting pressure on the court, and that the propaganda press had been trying to pin the case on the political left from the outset.

Under these circumstances, it is difficult for the court to reach an independent verdict, the attorney added.

There had been two other defendants in the case. The prosecution charged the first defendant, Ilaria Salis, an Italian citizen, with three counts of attempted bodily harm causing danger to life, committed partly as a co-perpetrator and partly as an accomplice in a criminal organization, but the defendant has since gained immunity by being elected to the European Parliament.

The second defendant, Tobias E, a German national, has already been convicted and is currently under criminal supervision in Germany. The fifth defendant is also abroad, in Italy, because the Italian authorities did not extradite him to Hungary. The third defendant, Anna M, is defending herself in Germany while remaining free.

The verdict is not binding, as the prosecution has appealed for harsher sentences for all three defendants. It has requested longer prison sentences for the fourth and fifth defendants and an enforceable prison sentence for the third defendant.

At the same time, the defense attorneys for all three defendants have filed appeals for acquittal or mitigation of the sentence.