The Szeged court of appeal on Thursday sentenced Ahmed H, a Syrian man charged with illegal border crossing and complicity in “acts of terrorism”, to five years in prison. The sentence was a commutation of the first-instance sentence of seven years in a high-security prison. He can be released on probation after serving two-thirds of the sentence, the ruling said, Daily News Hunfary reports.
Ahmed H., who has been in prison for three years, was charged after migrants broke the border fence at the southern Hungarian crossing at Röszke in September 2015.
In the reasoning of the verdict the judge said that even though Ahmed H. first warned the crowd at the border to stay calm, he later joined them throwing rocks at Hungarian police officers, injuring several of them. Ahmed H then crossed to Hungary at the first opportunity across the broken fence, the judge added.
The court considered Ahmed’s lack of police record a mitigating circumstance, as well as the fact that he does not speak Hungarian and the long time he has already spent in prison, the judge said.
