Hungary – The Budapest Police Headquarters have issued a statement announcing the end of the investigation on the February antifa attacks. It turns out that those were precise, rehearsed attacks, aimed at sending a deterrent message to representatives of far-right movements by deliberately inflicting serious, even life-threatening injuries.
In the wake of that statement, the prosecutor’s office will press charges against the three foreign nationals suspected of the attacks.
According to the indictment, it all started in Leipzig in 2017, when a German man, together with his wife, founded a far-left organisation determined to use violence against far-right sympathisers. Accordingly, they agreed to carry out organised attacks against unsuspecting victims identified or perceived as far-right sympathisers.
Following attacks in Germany between October 2018 and February 2020, they decided in 2022 to carry out similar attacks in Budapest. The attacks were planned to take place around February 11 – a day traditionally celebrated by the Hungarian Right under the name of “the Day of Honour”, to commemorate the last major German-Hungarian military offensive against the Red Army in 1945.
When organising the attacks, in order to avoid detection, members of theantifa organisation communicated with each other via a darknet application or in face-to-face meetings.The attacks had a well-planned, rehearsed script, with a pre-arranged division of tasks.
As reported by Mandiner:
“The duration of the attacks was set at 30 seconds and was measured by the commander, who started and stopped the attack, and then assisted in the escape of his companions. The observer was responsible for monitoring the environment and preventing interference from outsiders, while the rest of the team were the attackers. During the attacks, the perpetrators also sought to prevent facial recognition and identification.
Subsequently, between 9 and 11 February 2023, a total of five attacks took place in Budapest, in which a total of nine people were injured. (…)
The victims included Hungarian and foreign nationals. Six of them suffered serious injuries, threeof them light injuries, but several of those injuries had the potential to cause life-threatening conditions.”