The Romanian met with friends and his brother in the city center to “walk through the crowd” there, saying he did not take part in the protest. He was not an opponent of the measures, emphasized the 33-year-old, he was even vaccinated. Around 40,000 people came to the large demonstration. “There are cozier places than a Corona demo,” remarked the chairman of the lay judge, Georg Olschak. “That’s true, but my friends chose to go.”
“Targeted on helicopters for fun”
At 5.05 p.m. the first helicopter blinding occurred. “First I played with the laser and aimed at buildings,” said the Romanian. “And then, just for fun, onto the helicopter.” He didn’t know that it was such a powerful laser – according to the Ministry of the Interior permanent eye damage is likely here. He bought the device at the flea market. He is a crane driver and in winter when it is dark he can use the device to show his colleagues something more easily. That’s why he still had the laser in the breast pocket of his jacket. “I shouldn’t have taken him with me that evening.”
When the pilot and his flight operator were first blinded, the helicopter was about 2,000 feet above Parliament. “These are round 500 up to 600 meters above ground,” reported the pilot. “As soon as the cockpit is hit, it radiates everywhere.” He now directed his gaze into the interior of the aircraft so that his eyes could calm down again. The helicopter just had a Speed of 40 knots, which corresponds to about 80 kilometers per hour Luckily, because “with the forward speed we had a certain stability.”
The crew contacted ground units to report the incident. “You can trace the origin of the laser quite well and narrow it down to ten meters,” said the pilot. However, since the crowd was still moving at that time, the polluter could not be located for the time being. For safety reasons, since it was already dusk, all of the helicopter’s lights were switched off. When the helicopter returned to Heldenplatz at 5:50 p.m., it was blinded again. The flight operator, who sat behind the pilot to film the demonstration train, appeared to be looking directly into the laser light. “I saw something green flickering along.” He was blinded for a few seconds.
Consciously, purposefully and intentionally
The blinding was “conscious, targeted and intentional,” said the pilot. When the judge asked what would happen if he, the police pilot, and not his colleague, had looked directly into the laser beam, he said: “Yes, then I would have congratulated us. Then it would have crashed. The colleague from couldn’t have helped at the back.”
However, the flight operator was able to use his monitor to quickly locate the person responsible on the ground, who was now at a punch stand. When several officers approached the 33-year-old, “I thought I had done something wrong with the laser,” said the accused. When asked who has a laser, the Romanian admitted everything. “I noticed that I was disturbing the pilot and didn’t light up anymore,” said the accused. “Yes, because they were arrested eight minutes later,” the judge stated.
“I can’t explain it, I’m very, very sorry. I regret it,” said the accused and I towards the crew of the police helicopter: “I want to apologize. I wasn’t aware that I was endangering your life .”
Intentional endangerment of aviation
The 33-year-old was sentenced to two years, including eight months of unconditional imprisonment, for intentionally endangering aviation. Due to his previous record and his confession, the range of punishment, which is between one and ten years, was in the lower range. To pronounce the sentence entirely conditional, “was not possible for general preventive reasons,” said the judge in his verdict. Other perpetrators should be signaled that this should not be tolerated. Because such glare would get the upper hand, said Olschak. The accused and the public prosecutor took three days to think about it, so the verdict is not final.
Source: Nachrichten
