World / Refugees And Migrants

Hungarian camerawoman who kicked migrants charged

11:06 am on 9 September 2016

A camerawoman who was filmed kicking and tripping up refugees near the Hungary-Serbia border has been charged with breaching the peace.

This video grab made on September 9, 2015 shows a Hungarian TV camerawoman kicking a child as she run with other migrants from a police line during disturbances at Roszke, southern Hungary. Photo: AFP

Petra Laszlo was caught on camera in September last year kicking a young girl and boy and then tripping up a man carrying a child at Roszke in southern Hungary.

Ms Laszlo was fired by right-wing TV channel N1TV after the footage of her actions went viral on social media.

She later apologised, saying she had panicked as migrants attempted to run across the border.

She said her life had been "ruined" by the incident.

Zsolt Kopasz, the chief prosecutor of Csongrad County, said the prosecution believed there was no "reasonable chance" of proving Laszlo's actions had caused injury, hence the charge of breaching the peace.

He said: "No data emerged which would have indicated that the conducts of the accused were motivated by ethnic considerations or by the migrant status of the victims."

The man Ms Laszlo appeared to trip was later identified as Osama Abdul Mohsen, a football coach from Syria.

He and part of his family have now settled in Spain, where he is working for a Spanish football club.

Hungary became a flashpoint in the refugee crisis last summer, with nearly 400,000 refugees and migrants passing through its territory before Prime Minister Viktor Orban ordered the erection of wire-topped fences on the borders with Serbia and Croatia.

- BBC