Translator in migrant trials charged with perjury

Kecskemét, May 22 (MTI) – The Kecskemét Prosecutor’s Office brought perjury charges against a translator involved in the trials on the 2015 Röszke disturbances involving migrants, the prosecutor’s office said on Monday.

On September 16, 2015, Hungarian police stopped illegal migrants trying to break through the gate at a crossing point of the Röszke-Horgos station on the border between Hungary and Serbia. Earlier, the police used tear gas and water-cannons against the crowd, numbering several hundred people and throwing stones, bottles and burning torches at the officers.

During the hearings of those charged with the attempted border offence, one of the accused submitted to the court a two-page document, handwritten in Arabic and professing his innocence, the prosecutor’s office said.

The 63-year-old translator charged today was at the time working for the translation agency assigned to the trial. According to the charges, she changed more than half of the original text so that it meant the opposite of the original, in full knowledge of the fact that the document was used as evidence in a court hearing, the prosecutor’s office said.

The judge hearing the case ordered the proofreading of the translation and subsequently filed a complaint against the translator.

The accused, who is an Arabic-Hungarian translator and interpreter based in Budapest, declined to give an explanation for her actions. Prosecution requested a suspended prison sentence.