Budapest, April 13 (MTI) – The prosecutor’s office has initiated expedited legal proceedings in connection with two activists who threw paint cans at the presidential Sándor Palace during a demonstration on Monday night.
The court handed down its verdict in expedited proceedings, finding the defendants guilty of rowdy behaviour and damaging the Sándor Palace at this past Monday’s demonstration.
Márton Gulyás, who had procured the paint cans, was sentenced to 300 hours of community work. The court annulled a probation sentence he had been given earlier by another court, also for rowdy behaviour.
Gergő Varga, the co-defendant, was sentenced to 200 hours of community work.
The prosecution had requested suspended prison sentences for the defendants. The defendants’ attorneys had asked the court to dismiss the charges, arguing that their offences did not qualify as crimes.
“The squirting paint smeared the registered monument as well as the bodies and clothing of police,” Tibor Ibolya, Budapest’s prosecutor, said in a statement earlier in the day. Two cans hit the wall and caused damage worth 23,000 forints (EUR 74) to the building, the statement added.
On Monday, participants in the spontaneous demonstration protested against President Janos Áder’s signing a contested higher education amendment seen by opponents as aimed against Budapest’s Central European University.
Photo: MTI
Source: MTI
3 comments
Causing damage means that taxpayers will have to pay more. CEU graduates did not even learn that damaging property is a crime. CEU graduates should throw away their diplomas, it is not worth anything.
There is a good saying in English, don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time. Vandalism powerful, but it is not a way to demonstrate! I am with CEU!
I too am with CEU, it will win it’s freedom once they comply. These idiots had a chance and opportunity and didn’t investigate their actions well. They shame the country, it’s history, among other things. They should be just glad time really isn’t back a hundred years for their sake if they think today’s rule is bad. I speak for the WEST’s rule by the way, where 50 years ago outside if you were anything but anglo-saxon you would be crucified and thown in jail. Good luck in your endeavours idiots!