Camerawoman plans to sue refugee she was filmed kicking

Petra László is to take legal action against Facebook over incident at Hungarian border

Screen grab from the video of  Hungarian camerawoman Petra László kicking refugees  at Roszke, southern Hungary. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images
Screen grab from the video of Hungarian camerawoman Petra László kicking refugees at Roszke, southern Hungary. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

A camera operator for a Hungarian nationalist television channel who was filmed kicking and tripping refugees has said she plans to sue one of them and Facebook.

Petra László apologised for the incident last month, saying that "something snapped in me" when she kicked two refugee children and tripped up a man carrying a child at Röszke in Hungary.

However, in a new interview with the Russian newspaper Izvestia, she has said she plans to take legal action against Facebook for allegedly refusing to remove groups that threatened her on the site after the incident and deleting groups that supported her.

Ms László also said she plans to sue Osama Abdul Mohsen, one of the Syrian refugees she kicked, saying: "He changed his testimony because he initially blamed the police.

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“My husband wants to prove my innocence. For him, it is now a matter of honour.”

Ms László was fired by N1TV after footage of the incident was posted on Twitter by Stephan Richter, a reporter for the German television channel RTL.

N1TV - which has links to the far-right Jobbik party - said Ms László’s behaviour was unacceptable and that her job had been terminated “with immediate effect”.

The incident happened as hundreds of people broke through a police line at Röszke, close to the Hungarian-Serbian border, where thousands of migrants and refugees have been crossing every day for the last month.

Criminal case

Last week, Hungarian prosecutors said a criminal case for breach of the peace had been opened against Ms László.

In the interview, Ms László also said she wanted to move her family to Russia because she felt unsafe in Hungary.

“We consider Russia and we think that we will begin to learn Russian. For us it is important to leave Hungary. We will decide after the trial.”

Meanwhile, Mohsen and his family are beginning a new life in the Spanish city of Getafe, near Madrid, after a Spanish football academy offered to help him rebuild his life and restart his career as a football coach.

The Syrian had been a coach for al-Fotuwa, a first-division football team in Deir Ezzor, before the civil war forced his family to flee their hometown.

Guardian service