Man in Vienna may have been wrongly sentenced to 11 years in prison

The man’s two defense attorneys, Michael Dohr and Marcus Januschke, applied for a resumption of the proceedings after the verdict became final in December on the basis of new, previously unknown evidence. The Vienna regional court approved this and the man was released from custody.

The Vienna Higher Regional Court (OLG) subsequently confirmed these decisions. A complaint against this from the Vienna public prosecutor was not followed up at the end of May and a new main hearing against the 48-year-old was initiated. This will now take place on November 13th in the large jury room of the Vienna Regional Court. The defendant’s legal representatives are convinced that the 48-year-old “can only be acquitted this time,” as defense attorney Dohr said in an interview with the APA on Tuesday. Regarding the judicial processes to date, Dohr stated: “Justice and truth are children of the times.”

Assassination attempt in 2018

The starting point of the whole thing is an assassination attempt on a man who was knocked down with an elongated, tubular tool and critically injured in the early morning of November 20, 2018 in Hippgasse in Ottakring. He suffered, among other things, a traumatic brain injury and a skull fracture. The prosecutor handling the case later stated that it was a miracle that the man survived the injuries inflicted on him.

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As it turned out, the man’s former father-in-law had ordered the attack – out of insulted honor because he had had an extramarital affair with his sister-in-law and had also fathered a child with her. This didn’t suit the Turkish-born real estate entrepreneur who had arranged his daughter’s marriage at all, so he wanted to have his ex-son-in-law removed. For this purpose he looked for a killer, who he found after a long search for a corresponding fee. After the assassination attempt failed, those responsible were identified and arrested after a lengthy investigation. The victim’s ex-father-in-law was convicted of murder by the Vienna Regional Court in October 2019, and the immediate perpetrator was convicted of attempted murder last February. Both received life sentences, and these sentences are legally binding.

Convicted as an accessory offender

The 48-year-old was also co-accused and convicted last year, although incriminating information from the mastermind was crucial. He claimed that the 48-year-old knew the plan, accepted the hired killer’s demand for money of 10,000 euros, promised that a corresponding invoice would be issued and paid it. The 48-year-old vehemently denied this before a jury, but the jury did not believe his protestations of innocence. The man was found guilty of being an accessory to the crime and was sentenced to eleven years in prison.

“Implicated” in the murder case to get revenge

However, it then emerged that the mastermind of the murder plot may have falsely incriminated the 48-year-old. A fellow prisoner of the 58-year-old former real estate entrepreneur wrote a handwritten letter to lawyer Marcus Januschke, one of the 48-year-old’s two defense attorneys, on September 1, 2022. In it, the sender stated that the mastermind had told him in the Josefstadt prison and later during a bus ride to the Stein prison that he had testified falsely against the 48-year-old and had “dragged” him into the murder case in order to get revenge. Motive: The 48-year-old is said to have sold land owned by the 58-year-old in Turkey and defrauded him in the process. “He is obsessed with the idea of ​​revenge. With his lies he has persuaded the High Court to convict an innocent person,” says the letter, which is available to the APA. The writer also named another prisoner who had also heard that the 58-year-old was unjustly incriminating someone. The second prisoner confirmed this in a witness interview in January 2023 under the obligation to tell the truth.

The Vienna Higher Regional Court, which examined the application for reopening in detail, found that the ex-father-in-law of the man who was almost killed had never linked the 48-year-old to this crime until August 2021. With the two new witnesses – the 58-year-old’s former fellow prisoners – it can “not be ruled out” that the evidence against the 48-year-old could be shaken, as it says in the decision that dismissed the public prosecutor’s complaint: “The statements of the two witnesses, the only witness for the prosecution had admitted false incrimination to them (…) because he felt cheated, a significant evidentiary relevance cannot be denied, so this will have to be assessed together with the other evidence before a new jury. “

The hearing on November 13th is scheduled until 6 p.m. The main hearing will be led by Andreas Böhm, an experienced judge who has worked at the Gray House for many years.

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