Matthias Monroy

Despite an instruction from the Federal Constitutional Court, the judiciary in Dresden had a person from the left-wing scene wanted on a warrant handed over to the Hungarian police. Now there is a threat of a repeat offence.

Despite instructions to the contrary from a higher authority, the Berlin Court of Appeal granted an extradition request from Hungary for Maja T. last Thursday afternoon. In the middle of the following night, the Saxon State Criminal Police Office (LKA) put the non-binary activist on a helicopter bound for Austria. At 6.50am on Friday, T. was handed over to the police at the Austrian border and finally delivered to the police in Hungary at around 10.00am – probably due to a so-called transit extradition request.

Friday’s chain extradition was the climax of a case that Maja T.’s supporters have been preparing for months. In Budapest, T. is to be tried for being a member of a “left-wing extremist organisation of young adults” and for attempted dangerous and grievous bodily harm. Together with over a dozen left-wingers from Germany, Italy, Albania and Syria, T. allegedly injured six suspected participants in a march with batons and other tools on the fringes of the far-right “Day of Honour” in the Hungarian capital in February 2023.

As late as Friday night, T.’s lawyers, Maik Elster from Jena and Sven Richwin from Berlin, tried to stop the handover with reference to inhumane prison conditions in Hungary; early in the morning, they filed an urgent application with the Federal Constitutional Court. The positive decision came at 10.50 a.m. and thus too late: T. was already on Hungarian territory at this time – as in Austria, German police or judicial authorities have no powers there.

There are now accusations that the Berlin Public Prosecutor General’s Office ignored the instructions of the highest German court. According to its own statements, the authority only learnt of the decision from the Karlsruhe court at 8.32 a.m., when T. was already in the hands of the police in Austria. However, Elster and Richwin claim to have already informed the LKA Saxony that night that they intended to take the legal action. There, in turn, it is said that the lawyers had merely announced their intention to “complain to the judiciary”.

So was the announcement too vague? On Wednesday, Berlin MPs from the Left and Green parties questioned Senator for Justice Felor Badenberg in the House of Representatives’ Legal Affairs Committee. The Christian Democrat politician brought senior public prosecutor Simone Herbeth with her to answer the questions, who described the process in detail. According to Herbeth, the Hungarian judicial authorities had given the Court of Appeal guarantees for a constitutional trial and humane detention conditions for T., which could be monitored by the German consulate. This also includes the assurance that T. will be allowed to serve any prison sentence imposed in Germany in the event of a judgement.

The Federal Constitutional Court had ruled on Friday that if the extradition had already begun, “measures for the return” of T. to Germany must be taken. However, the judges did not know at the time that T. was already out of the country, public prosecutor Herbeth explained to the legal committee. This made the instruction obsolete. The Federal Constitutional Court had also assured her of this after further enquiry.

Herbeth explained the fact that Maja T. was flown to the Austrian border by helicopter by referring to planned “disruptive actions” by supporters to prevent her extradition. In view of these “threat scenarios”, she assumed that the Saxon State Criminal Police Office had therefore decided in favour of the early flight.

“The answers from the Public Prosecutor’s Office leave me stunned,” said Sebastian Schüsselburg, member of the Left Party and legal policy spokesperson for the parliamentary group, in an interview with “nd”. The authorities had “deliberately sped things up” in order to pre-empt the Federal Constitutional Court.

This is also the view of lawyer Nikolaos Gazeas from Cologne, who was asked by the legal magazine “Legal Tribune Online” to categorise the case. He describes the way in which the extradition was carried out as a “cloak-and-dagger operation” and, in view of the imminent decision by the Constitutional Court, as unlawful. “I am familiar with such a procedure from rogue states such as Russia and Iran, but not from a constitutional state,” said the lawyer.

The Committee for Fundamental Rights and Democracy is calling on the Berlin Public Prosecutor General’s Office to “do everything possible to bring Maja T. back from Hungary immediately”. The Cologne-based organisation wrote this in a press release on Wednesday. However, this is no longer possible by legal means, as no German judgement can be enforced in Hungary, says Sven Richwin, one of the activist’s lawyers, when asked by “nd”. The team of lawyers intends to lodge a constitutional complaint against the extradition to the country, which is considered to be hostile to queer people – but with the aim of obtaining a general judgement on the Hungarian human rights situation.

The Hungarian judicial system also allows defendants to be brought to court in chains and on a leash. This is what happened to the Italian Ilaria Salis at the start of her trial in Budapest in February. This led to an outcry among the Italian public and a diplomatic row between the two countries. An Italian in extradition custody in the same case was released by the Public Prosecutor’s Office in Milan. Salis was finally allowed to leave for her home town of Monza after her successful candidature for the EU Parliament.

Maja T. could now also be brought to trial in chains. The handover to the Hungarian police on Friday offered a foretaste of this. In a video released by the authorities, police officers armed with machine guns can be seen attaching a strap to T.’s handcuffs and leading them to a vehicle. The authorities did not obtain a confession during the subsequent interrogation, Budapest police confirmed on Friday.

“Maja is being made an example of in order to intimidate the anti-fascist movement,” wrote the solidarity organisation Rote Hilfe at the weekend. In fact, the Hungarian authorities have issued European and international arrest warrants for 14 other people, three of whom were arrested abroad, according to the Hungarian police. One of them is the anti-fascist Hanna S., who has been in custody in Nuremberg since the beginning of May.

Published in German in „nd“.

Image: Maja T. is handcuffed and led away on a strap by the Hungarian police. The authorities did not receive a confession by them (Hungarian police/ screenshot).