A victim of the attacks carried out in Budapest in February 2023 by Antifa militants has spoken of the horrific injuries he and his fiancée sustained. Possibly scarred for life, 60-year-old László Dudog said, “It’s a miracle we’re alive.”
Dudog, whose bruised, deformed face has been the symbol of the Antifa (short for ‘anti-fascist’) violence, spoke to the Italian daily Il Giornale, saying, “I ended up there [in the hospital] because my fiancée and I were attacked and injured with batons, and stabbed by those criminals. They smashed my head. My fiancée was stabbed twice in the legs,” he told the publication. The injuries have left lasting damage.
They broke my cheekbone, and today—more than a year after the attack—the entire left side of my face is paralyzed and completely numb. The head wounds caused by the batons have more or less healed, but I still have some swelling in some parts.
His fiancée still has a fragment of bone sticking out from under her eye. László Dudog doesn’t deny attending the ‘Day of Honour’ event [an annual neo-Nazi gathering that was banned by Hungarian authorities in 2022] “but that doesn’t excuse the criminals who tried to kill me.” He said the perpetrators must have followed him and his fiancée because they were attacked not immediately after the event, but later, after attending a concert. “We certainly weren’t doing anything that would qualify us at the time. No one, seeing us, could tell whether we were on the right or the left. We were just a couple of passers-by. We walked around holding hands and chatting like many couples do,” he said.
As we reported last week, a German left-wing extremist was sentenced to three years in prison in Hungary, while two of his Antifa accomplices—an Italian man and a German woman—pleaded not guilty to taking part in violent attacks last year, and will be summoned to a Budapest court in May.
In February of last year, nine people were injured—four of them seriously—in a series of attacks organised by the so-called Hammerbande (Hammer Gang), a German left-wing militant group linked to Antifa—itself a far-left network of ‘anti-fascist’ groups. The members of the group surrounded and bludgeoned their victims with telescopic batons and hammers in five separate attacks in the Hungarian capital.
Their plan was to target participants in the ‘Day of Honour.’ Police caught three of the perpetrators but their remaining fourteen accomplices—German, Italian, Albanian, and Syrian nationals—were able to flee Hungary.
The case has attracted much attention in Europe, with leftist Italian politicians and media outlets criticising Hungary for the treatment of one of the attackers, 39-year-old teacher Ilaria Salis. Italian media have complained of “appalling” prison conditions and were apparently shocked by footage of Salis appearing at last week’s court hearing with her hands and ankles restrained.
While left-wing Italian media have been portraying Salis as a heroic victim of Hungary, the case has led to a minor diplomatic spat between Hungary and Italy, with Rome summoning the Hungarian ambassador, and Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni discussing the case with her Hungarian counterpart Viktor Orbán on the sidelines of a European summit in Brussels last week. Though Hungarian authorities have rejected the accusations of prisoner mistreatment, the European Parliament was quick to pounce on the case, and held a debate on the matter, in what was another excuse by left-liberal politicians to attack the conservative government of Hungary.
Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini of the conservative Lega party called out the hypocrisy of the leftists, saying that Salis had taken part in violent attacks in Italy as well.
Talking to La Repubblica about the case, he said:
Do you think it’s normal for a primary school teacher to go around Europe to beat and spit on people? Although it is not acceptable in 2024 to go to court with shackles on, that woman, if she is guilty, must pay. And if she committed the crime in Hungary, she must be tried in Hungary. The Left always tells us that we have to respect the judiciary, so let them also respect the Hungarian judiciary.
Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani also warned the leftist opposition of turning a judicial case into a political issue. Speaking in parliament on Thursday, February 8th, he said Ilaria Salis’ conditions in detention are improving thanks to his intervention, but Italy must respect international law and the Hungarian judicial system. He said Italy would not request that the attacker be placed under house arrest as accommodating her at the Italian embassy would be a security risk.