For the representatives of the private parties, Florian Höllwarth and Johannes Öhlböck, the suspects, who had experience with drugs, could have assumed that this drug cocktail would be fatal. The lawyers hope that the charges will be expanded to include murder during the trial.
Prosecutors have charged with fatal rape and serious sexual abuse of minors. The threat of punishment is just as high as for murder – up to life imprisonment for adults and up to 20 years in prison for young adults – but for the victims’ lawyers this would be “symbolic”. If the prosecution is convinced in the course of the evidential process that there is a suspicion of murder, they have the right to file an application for an extension of the charge.
The background to the Leonie case:
Overdosed several times
The three suspects aged 19 to 23, against whom charges have now been brought, are said to have decided at the time the girl came into the apartment to put her under the influence of heavy drugs and to rape her together. There is no standard for Exctasy tablets, said Öhlböck. “But it is assumed that a maximum dosage of 1.3 milligrams per kilogram of body weight applies to women. “If that should also be confirmed by the experts, then that means that it was overdosed several times.” For Öhlböck, it was predictable been that a girl at the age of 13 could die from it.
Video: That’s what the victims’ lawyers say
“Symbolic Effect”
“How much did the accused know, what did they think was possible and what did they come to terms with,” says Öhlböck. “These are the questions that will arise in the main hearing.” Two of the accused had documented “massive experience with drugs”. “They have to know, I maintain, what drugs do to a person, to a young person, to a 13-year-old girl.” They used the drugs for a specific purpose, to bring about the girl’s defenseless state. For him, the question arises as to whether they had to reckon with the fact that the girl could also die from this intoxication with MDA. “And if that’s the case, then that’s ultimately murder,” said Öhlböck. “There is nothing to be gained for the accused,” whether they are convicted of rape resulting in death or murder, said his colleague Höllwarth. The penalty is the same. But it would have “a symbolic effect,” he said.
Eleven witnesses and seven experts
The representatives of the private parties assume that the trial will take place at the end of August or mid-September. In addition to questioning the accused, who need an interpreter, eleven witnesses and seven experts are heard. That’s why the victims’ lawyers want to protect the relatives – Höllwarth represents the parents of the 13-year-old, Öhlböck the four siblings – to file an application for exclusion of the public. When this should take place, the two left open at the press conference. Above all, there are two videos that the accused are said to have made during the crime, these are not publicly played to the court from the outset.
The relatives will join the proceedings as private parties. Claims of between 10,000 and 50,000 euros per person are then made. “However, the question arises as to who will get it from,” says Öhlböck. Even in the case of a murdered 16-year-old in Wiener Neustadt three years ago, the family’s compensation for pain and suffering amounting to 40,000 euros was practically impossible to recover, said Höllwarth, who also represented the parents there.
Lawyers consider lawsuit against Republic
The lawyers also see politics in the obligation to bring, the relatives could not appear as “supplicants”. The representatives of the private parties are also considering an official liability action against the Republic of Austria. They accuse the republic that the asylum procedures for the suspects took far too long. The men would also have heard better monitored by the authorities.
After the violent death of the 13-year-old, Höllwarth and Öhlböck also sent a letter to Justice Minister Alma Zadic (Greens) and then Interior Minister Karl Nehammer (ÖVP) to make proposals for changing structural violence against women. There was no reaction at all from the Ministry of Justice, from the Ministry of the Interior there was initially a positive reaction, but it was very quickly shown “that there is basically no interest in innovations, in proposals to change existing structures,” said Höllwarth.
Source: Nachrichten
