Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has intervened in the case of German citizen Maja T., who is imprisoned in Hungary. As Der Spiegel reports, the 24-year-old is accused of attacking participants in a right-wing extremist meeting in Hungary in February 2023. She was arrested in Berlin at the end of 2023 and transferred to Hungary in June 2024, where she has been in custody since then. Now the Foreign Minister is intervening.

The Federal Constitutional Court subsequently declared the extradition inadmissible. There are doubts as to whether Maja T. can expect a legal trial in Hungary. In addition, the solitary confinement in which the detainee has been held for months has been criticized. As has become known from diplomatic circles, Baerbock is in talks with the Hungarian government to improve the prison conditions. The Minister of State for Europe, Anna Lührmann, has also advocated for a legal treatment of Maja T. with her Hungarian counterpart, reports Der Spiegel.

It is unclear why the Berlin Higher Regional Court did not involve the Foreign Office before the extradition - a step that is not required in politically sensitive cases, but is common practice. Baerbock is also said to have spoken personally with the parents of the detainees in Thuringia. When asked, a spokeswoman for the Foreign Office said: "The Foreign Office is dealing with Maja's case and our colleagues at the Budapest embassy have been providing consular support to Maja since her extradition."

No possibility of retrieval

Berlin's Justice Senator Felor Badenberg explained that there was no legal possibility of bringing Maja T. back to Germany. "We have of course taken note of the decision of the Federal Constitutional Court," said the CDU politician in the Berlin House of Representatives. "However, the extradition cannot be reversed." She also stressed that the Senate Department for Justice was not responsible. A possible extradition to Hungary was also being discussed for six other German suspects. However, as a spokeswoman for the Federal Prosecutor General announced, the respective responsible public prosecutors' offices had been informed that German

According to the Federal Prosecutor's Office, the incidents on which the accusations against T. are based occurred on the so-called "Day of Honor" in Budapest. Right-wing extremists from all over Europe gather there to commemorate the attempted escape of the German Wehrmacht, the Waffen-SS and their Hungarian collaborators from the city besieged by the Red Army on February 11, 1945. Several left-wing extremists, including Maja T., are said to have attacked visitors there, some of them seriously injured. Bodily harm. T. is also considered a supporter of the "Hammer Gang", a left-wing radical criminal organization that has attacked and injured right-wing people on several occasions.




Author: Editorial staff