Hungarian court expels Iraqi refugee who came through hole in border fence

A court in the southern city of Szeged sentenced an Iraqi man arrested after entering Hungary illegally to expulsion on Wednesday, and banned him from re-entering Hungary for one year.

He was also fined about 70 U.S. dollars in court costs.

The man, whose name was not released, told the court that he had left Baghdad with a brother after two of his brothers had been killed in the fight, and had been intending to travel to Finland where he has another sibling. Arriving at the Hungarian border on Tuesday, he entered Hungary with a group through a hole cut by others.

He reiterated that he did not know this was a felony offence. Had he known, he said, he would have chosen a different route.

Judge Krisztian Kemenes said the multiple rows of fencing should have been signal enough that the crossing was illegal. The court's goal, he said, was not to punish people but to convince arrivals to respect Hungary's laws.

The sentence, he added, was the minimum for the offense. Endit