Subscribe to our social channels to get the latest news about Hungary!
Szeged appeals court dismisses first-instance ruling for Syrian involved in border crossing riot
Change language:
An appeals court in Szeged dismissed on Thursday the first-instance ruling concerning a Syrian man convicted under terrorism charges for his role in a riot by migrants at Hungary’s Röszke border crossing with Serbia in the autumn of 2015. The appellate court has ordered a new trial.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Y2Ci4bajD0
In the primary ruling passed by a Szeged court in November 2016, Ahmed H was sentenced to serve ten years in prison for terrorist activities involving illegal border crossing as well as incitement to violence in the context of a riot.
he court in southern Hungary also ruled that at least two thirds of his term must be served before permanent expulsion from the country.
As part of his conviction, Ahmed H was sentenced for using a megaphone to direct migrants who were hurling rocks at police on the Hungarian border.
The prosecution appealed for a longer prison term while the defence appealed for a dismissal of the terrorism charge and a reduced sentence in respect of the other charges.
Judge Erik Mezőlaki said in his reasoning that the first-instance court was supposed to review and weigh the pieces of evidence presented to it both separately and as a whole. Instead the court handed down its verdict without clarifying the basis for considering or dismissing the individual pieces of evidence, Mezőlaki said. The evidence and arguments on which it based its verdict were also not made clear, he added. The judge said this error on the part of the first-instance court had had a fundamental effect on the legal qualification of the defendant’s actions.