Budapest complex | “They want to extradite me without evidence”

The Albanian anti-fascist Rexhino "Gino" Abazaj (far left) and his French lawyer Laurent Pasquet-Marinacce (to his right) as well as the MP Thomas Portes from La France Insoumise (far right) take part in a press conference at the Actes Sud publishing house in Paris. Today the Paris Court of Cassation will decide on Gino's extradition to the German authorities. Photo: AFP/Simon Wohlfahrt How do you feel a few hours before the French Court of Cassation's decision?

I don't deny a certain nervousness. Today will be crucial for my future, both in this process and in relation to my life in France. One must consider the absurdity of this second arrest warrant from Germany. Two arrest warrants from two different countries were issued against the same person, for the same acts, with exactly the same allegations. But the investigations on which both are based are the same, namely those of the Budapest judiciary - an institution that the Paris Court of Appeal has already classified as not really worthy of a democracy.

In addition, in recent years it has already come to light that some evidence relevant to these investigations had been falsified, as was the case in the cases of Ilaria Salis or the German anti-fascist Tobias E. (who was arrested together with Ilaria Salis and extradited to Germany after a year in prison, editor's note).

We have raised all this before the Paris Court of Appeal and requested that the case be referred to the Court of Justice of the European Union, which we believe is better placed to assess the legality of the German arrest warrant against me. However, the Paris judges rejected this request. We hope that the judges of the Court of Cassation will recognize the absurdity of this German arrest warrant.

Today, the judges of the French Court of Cassation must decide whether 34-year-old Italian-Albanian anti-fascist Rexhino "Gino" Abazaj will be extradited to Germany - at the end of an unprecedented legal battle. “Gino” Abazaj has had to fight against two European arrest warrants in the last two years. First the one from Hungary, which was rejected by the Paris Court of Appeal last year, then another issued by the German authorities. Both arrest warrants concern the same facts: acts of violence against neo-Nazi activists during the right-wing extremist “Day of Honor” parade in Budapest in 2023.

What threatens you if you are extradited to Germany? Would you then be deported to Albania or transferred to Budapest?

There is a risk of being extradited to Budapest, even if I cannot assess it. Just think of the case of Maja T., a German anti-fascist who was almost secretly extradited from Germany to Budapest in 2024.

I am accused of two charges: that I attacked two neo-Nazis in Budapest and that I was part of an imaginary criminal organization that is said to have organized the whole thing. My lawyers and I believe that there is not nearly enough evidence to prove one charge or another, but in the meantime in Germany I would be immediately remanded in custody until the trial begins. If I were to be convicted, I would have to serve half of the sentence in Germany - a country to which I have no connection - and the other half in my country of origin or where I live, either in Albania or in Italy.

If convicted, I will request to serve the sentence in Italy. My entire family lives in Italy and I grew up there.

In addition to you, there are dozens of other high-ranking anti-fascist activists who were wanted or imprisoned by the German judiciary on the same charges. What reasons do you think led the German investigators to devote so much energy to pursuing you and the other suspects?

It is obvious to me that there is a section of German institutions that has a purely political interest in suppressing anti-fascism in Germany and Europe, while at the same time ignoring the enormous number of violent acts committed by neo-Nazi groups. The seriousness of the charges we are being accused of and the number of years in prison we are being tried to serve are completely disproportionate to the actual incidents with which we are accused.

The text was provided to "nd" by the left-wing Italian daily newspaper "Il Manifesto", with which we cooperate.

In these three years, since the events in Budapest, you have experienced all sorts of vicissitudes: the escape and then the imprisonment in Paris, the many hours in court … Now you are threatened with a stay in a German prison. Was it worth it just to protest a neo-Nazi demonstration in Hungary?

We went there to demonstrate because we thought it was important to resist the advance of neo-fascism in Europe. We are talking about a European capital, not a meeting in the countryside. The “Day of Honor” is the largest gathering of the extreme right in Europe. How is it possible that something like this is allowed? This was only possible thanks to the complicity – not just tolerance – of the Hungarian institutions.

We went there to denounce everything that is happening not only in Hungary, but increasingly in other European countries, where the extreme right is now breaking through all the dams. Entrepreneurs and billionaires, radio and television station operators are enabling neo-fascism to rear its head again.

What we did not expect was that our action would trigger such a fierce hunt for anti-fascists. But whether you like it or not: demonstrating against fascism is something that has to be done - always, in every country, wherever you are.

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