The Hungarian Supreme Court has acquitted a female reporter previously convicted for kicking and tripping up migrants as they ran across the border from Serbia three years ago.
Petra Laszlo was sentenced to three years on probation by two lower courts for the acts, which drew global attention and condemnation in 2015 at the height of the refugee crisis in the Balkans.
Several cameras caught her kicking a girl and tripping up a man with a child in his arms as the migrants dodged police officers trying to stop them entering the country across the Serbian border.
The Supreme Court ruled that Laszlo should have been charged with disorderly conduct, a non-criminal misdemeanour.
The defendant apologised during the trial and had tried to justify her reaction by saying that she had been fearful due to the oncoming migrants. She was nonetheless fired from her job by her then-employer, N1TV.
The incident occurred at the time when thousands of refugees and migrants were arriving at the Hungarian border via the Balkan route.
Prime Minister Viktor Orban - a fierce anti-immigration campaigner - had been passing measures to stem the influx.
A few weeks after the September 8 incident, his government completed the construction of a fence laced with razor wire along the border with Serbia.
By March 2016, all countries on the Balkan route had stopped allowing migrants passage en route to wealthier parts of Europe.
Share
