Image: Daniel Scharinger (Daniel Scharinger)
Prosecutors charged him with attempted murder. According to the indictment, the act was only prevented from being carried out due to the courageous intervention of third parties. The 38-year-old pleaded not guilty. The jury acquitted the defendant of attempted murder late in the afternoon. The verdict: twelve months imprisonment, two of them unconditionally, because of dangerous threats. Since the accused was credited with the time in custody, he was released after the trial. The verdict is not yet legally binding.
The accused is said to have ambushed his brother-in-law on March 26 at night in Riedau, Schärding district, at the side of the road. After a scuffle, he is said to have pulled a cleaver he had taken with him from his waistband and tried to hit his relative with it. However, this did not happen because, according to the indictment, people passing by fixed the attacker’s arm and took his gun. The overwhelmed man is said to have yelled that he wanted to kill the 37-year-old and his family, later he denied any intention to kill.
The prosecutor saw it as attempted murder. The accused said three times that he wanted to kill his brother-in-law – once in front of his wife, then during the crime and again afterwards. The accused, however, presented the attack in wordy statements as a misunderstanding and pleaded not guilty, the defense demanded an acquittal.
It is undisputed that my client was heavily intoxicated and that there was a scuffle. But there was absolutely no reason to want to kill the brother-in-law. One cannot legally speak of attempted murder, so my client will have to be acquitted, said defense attorney Christian Zeilinger in his opening statement.
The accused claimed in court that he was very drunk at the time of the crime. After a dispute with his wife, who decided to go to court, he drank copious amounts of beer and nut schnapps at a kebab stand. “I’ve never had such an intoxication in my life,” the accused testified.
The judge saw it as “not a state of complete intoxication”. The 38-year-old drove home after the crime, where he was arrested. He had 1.7 per thousand. Overall, the paths of the two men should have crossed three times that Sunday evening. The accused stated that in his intoxication he walked the short distance from his house to the kebap stand and back several times. There, in the evening hours, there was a repeated encounter with his brother-in-law. The presiding judge of the jury, Stefan Kiesl, summarized the three meetings as follows: “At first it was quite civilized, at the second meeting it was more aggressive, at the third it escalated.” The accused did not deny that: “Yes, that’s right.”
The accused act was preceded by the accused throwing a beer bottle at his brother-in-law’s car. “It wasn’t intentional. I wanted to pour the beer on the car,” then the bottle was enough for him, the defendant justified himself. Then there was a scuffle and violent insults. “Did you pull out the cleaver?” the judge wanted to know. “It may be, I don’t know, but I certainly didn’t want to hit him or hurt him,” replied the 38-year-old.
The alleged murder weapon is a special knife – a cleaver with a 17 centimeter wide blade, which the accused had stuck in his waistband. He only happened to have it with him, the man said in court, he “actually” wanted to give it to the kebap stand to grind. “I was in a coma intoxication,” said the defendant. Blame: the nut schnapps served at the kebab stand.
The threatened man said on the witness stand that he was very scared. “He yelled for me to come here because he’s killing me and my family.” Did you feel your brother-in-law wanted to kill you, the judge asked. “If he had wanted to, it would have been possible. Maybe he just wanted to scare me. He succeeded because I’ve never seen him so drunk,” replied the 37-year-old from Riedau. In general, there was no dispute between him and the 38-year-old. On the contrary, they sat together regularly “to drink a few beers.” When he is sober, his brother-in-law is “a great person”.
The presiding judge replied with a smile to the defense attorney’s suggestion that his client should put the cleaver in his trouser pocket to illustrate the point. “I will certainly not give the defendant a gun here in the courtroom.” One of the witnesses, when asked by the chairman whether he thought the defendant wanted to kill his opponent or just scare him, said: “I think he wanted to scare him.”
The jury followed this version and acquitted the defendant of the charge of attempted murder by a vote of 8:0. On the second question, whether the accused committed the offense of dangerous threat, the lay judges unanimously voted guilty. The 38-year-old was sentenced to one year in prison, two months of it unconditionally. The man has already served this time in custody, so he was able to leave the courtroom as a free man. Probation and anti-aggression training were ordered. Since the public prosecutor did not issue a statement, the verdict is not yet final.
Source: Nachrichten
