Hungary has called on the EU to strip parliamentary immunity from the Italian MEP Ilaria Salis, who was detained for 16 months in Budapest after an alleged attack on neo-Nazis.

The case of Salis, 39, a teacher from Monza, near Milan, sparked diplomatic protests and anger in Italy after she was brought last January to court in Hungary in chains, her hands cuffed and feet locked together.

Salis was arrested in Budapest in February 2023 after a counter-demonstration against a neo-Nazi rally, and charged with three counts of attempted assault and membership of an extreme leftwing organisation. She denied the charges, which carried a jail term of up to 11 years.

In a letter to her lawyer she described cells infested with rats and bugs, and said she was not allowed to wash for days at a time, or given urgent medical care.

In May Salis was granted house arrest in Budapest, and the following month she won a seat in the EU parliament as a candidate with the Greens and Left Alliance, granting her immunity from charges. She was freed from house arrest and returned to Italy in June.

On Tuesday, representatives of the Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party told a plenary session of the European parliament in Strasbourg that Budapest had formally requested the withdrawal of Salis’s parliamentary immunity.

Salis wrote in a note: “As I have repeatedly stated, I hope that the parliament chooses to defend the rule of law and human rights without yielding to the arrogance of an ‘illiberal democracy’ with autocratic tendencies, which, through the words of its own leaders, has already declared me guilty on multiple occasions before any verdict.”

She added: “It is not a coincidence that the transmission of the request to the parliament took place on October 10, the day after my intervention in the plenary session on the Hungarian presidency, where I strongly criticised Orbán’s actions. What is at stake is not only my personal future, but also and above all, the future of what we want Europe to be.”

Reacting via X to that statement, the Hungarian government spokesperson Zoltán Kovács accused Salis of “acting like you are some sort of victim”, saying it was “not only baffling but also utterly disgusting.”

He added: “Let me make it clear again: you weren’t arrested for your ‘political views’, you were arrested and put on trial for instances of armed assault on innocent Hungarian citizens.”

The Hungarian parliamentarians’ request has already been communicated to the president of the European parliament, Roberta Metsola. The request will then be announced in parliament and referred to the relevant parliamentary committee.

The process before reaching the final vote in parliament could take up to four months.