The 62-year-old was conditionally released from the Graz-Karlau prison after serving two-thirds of his sentence. This was announced by the spokeswoman for the Graz regional court, Barbara Schwarz, on Friday at the request of the APA.
In his prognosis assessment, a psychological expert had no objections to Seisenbacher’s conditional release, Schwarz said. The public prosecutor’s office in Graz agreed to this. The release from liability had therefore already been ordered.
This is not surprising given that Austrian criminal law stipulates that a prisoner should generally be released early after two-thirds of the sentence imposed on him, unless there are so-called special reasons that give reason to fear that he will commit another crime. The conditional release is linked to a probationary period of one to three years, during which the person concerned must behave well and follow any court instructions. According to court spokeswoman Schwarz, there were also such cases at Seisenbacher. If the ex-athlete violates conditions or even appears criminally again, the conditional release can be revoked. Then it would go back to prison to serve out the remainder of the sentence – which, however, cannot be assumed from the opinion of the psychologist consulted by the judiciary.
1984 Olympic champion
In December 2019, Seisenbacher was found guilty on all charges of child abuse by the Vienna Regional Criminal Court and sentenced to five years in prison. The Higher Regional Court (OLG) Vienna later reduced the sentence by two months. Seisenbacher then served his sentence in the Graz-Karlau correctional institution, which means that the Graz Regional Court, as the competent prison court, had to decide on the conditional release.
Not only the judo scene, but also large parts of the public reacted in disbelief when it became known at the time that the Vienna public prosecutor’s office had started investigations into Seisenbacher for sexual abuse of minors in 2013. The 1984 Olympic champion in Los Angeles, who successfully defended his title four years later in Seoul, remained an idol for many after the end of his active career. In 1996 he was awarded the Golden Decoration of Honor for services to the Republic of Austria. He founded his own judo club in Vienna, where there were acts of abuse that are no longer allowed to be reported on, since they are criminal acts that have been abolished by a court. Those affected were two girls who were still minors at the time when the crime was committed.
Seisenbacher had tried to avoid the criminal proceedings against him by fleeing to Ukraine at the end of 2016. He was arrested in August 2017 in an apartment in Kyiv. He was only extradited in September 2019 and handed over to the Vienna judiciary, where he was taken into custody. Seisenbacher’s time spent in prison in Ukraine and in custody in Vienna counted towards his five-year prison sentence.
Source: Nachrichten
