The camerawoman seen on video tripping fleeing migrants in Hungary was charged Wednesday with “breach of peace” by the public prosecutor’s office in the southern Hungarian city of Szeged.
According to the chief prosecutor, the woman did not inflict any physical injuries, but her behavior was “capable of provoking indignation and outcry in the members of the public present at the scenes.”
Video footage of the incident caused outrage in September 2015 after it showed the camerawoman tripping a man running with a child in his arms.
It happened after around 400 migrants broke through a police line in a holding camp outside Szeged.
Petra Laszlo, who was documenting the migrant story for the Hungarian nationalist N1TV station, apologized a few days later in a letter to the Magyar Nemzet newspaper. She said the ensuing panic scared her and made her think she would be attacked. “As I re-watch the film, it seems as it was not even me,” her letter said.
N1TV fired the videographer after the incident, Editor-in-Chief Szabolcs Kisberk said.
“The camera operator behavior was completely unacceptable,” N1TV said in a statement at the time.
Running for their lives
Laszlo was one of several videographers filming the flood of migrants trying to get through Hungary on their way to Austria and Germany.
After crossing from Serbia into Hungary with only the belongings they could carry, the migrants were stuck for days at a holding camp in southern Hungary. Many complained about uncomfortable or inhumane conditions there.
After breaking through the holding camp’s police line, they scrambled across a field, walked and hiked about 4 miles — many dropping their possessions on the ground.
A statement from the prosecutor’s office said nothing emerged in its investigation to indicate the accused’s conduct was “motivated by ethnic considerations or by the migrant status of the victims.”