The young man was sentenced to two years in prison by the criminal court. He is said to have attacked the taxi driver on April 23 with a wooden slat and a knife. The judgment is not final. The 18-year-old at the time of the attack pleaded partially guilty before the lay judges (presided over by Judge Alexandra Skrdla). Although he admitted the attack near the pumping station in Meidling, he did not intend to rob. Rather, the young man, who cares for his parents at home, had previously had an argument with his father. “The man reminded me of my father,” said the accused. “I wanted to scare him.” So he said: “Give me ten euros or something will happen.” And further: “In this situation I was not clear.”
He swung back with a wooden slat he had found five minutes earlier. The 61-year-old taxi driver, who was on his way to his service vehicle in the morning, noticed the young man, turned around and was able to ward off the blow with a movement of his arm. The piece of wood broke into three pieces.
According to the indictment, the then 18-year-old then pulled out a knife to continue threatening the professional driver. The suspect denied it was a weapon. It was a ballpoint pen, which he held in his hand like a knife. However, the 61-year-old suffered a cut in his hand, which could not have been caused by a pen, as assessor Anna Marchart demonstrated with her own pen during the hearing.
The taxi driver also emphasized that he had seen a knife. “It wasn’t a ballpoint pen. A knife blade looks different.” When the 61-year-old was able to fend off the second attack with a knife, he fell over the unevenness of a manhole cover and fell to the ground. Then the young man fled. He alerted the police with his cell phone and yelled for help. “You can scream what you want, nobody will help you,” said the accused.
The 61-year-old watched where the man ran but soon lost sight of him. A little later, the 19-year-old was investigated by the police because he left DNA traces on the wooden slat and because proceedings were already pending against him for attempted serious bodily harm.
Therefore, this eight-month sentence was taken into consideration and an additional sentence was now imposed. Both the public prosecutor and the defense asked for three days to think about it.
When the 61-year-old heard that the young man just wanted to scare him, he said: “Aha, for what reason? We don’t know each other.” The judge said he had problems with his father. “But nobody else can do anything about it,” said the taxi driver, who was awarded 500 euros in damages.
Source: Nachrichten
