The Bierwirt, who deliberately killed his ex-girlfriend with targeted shots in Vienna-Brigittenau last spring, was sentenced to life imprisonment for murder, severe coercion and violation of the gun law. In addition, he was sent to an institution for mentally abnormal law breakers. The jury’s verdict is already final.
“I accept the verdict and will serve it,” said the 43-year-old after the hearing. The massive criminal record, the murder of a relative and the coincidence of several crimes were rated as aggravating. The partially mitigating admission that an act remained an attempt and that he committed the acts under the influence of a mental abnormality. The court did not consider the fact that he was intoxicated during the fatal shots to be mitigating.
“Almost no memory” of act
Because the focus of the negotiation was the degree of alcoholism at the time of the offense. On the first day of the trial on Monday, the restaurateur pleaded guilty, but he no longer wanted to remember the act because of his intoxication with prescription drugs. On Wednesday he made a statement at the start of the negotiations. “I am sorry, I admit that I am guilty of everything,” he read from a piece of paper. “I don’t want to admit that I’m capable of such a lousy act.” The psychiatric expert was right, the alcohol consumption (and the associated gaps in memory, note) was a protective claim, he had activated the repression mechanism. “I don’t want to say more. I went inside myself. I realize that I have to take responsibility,” he read on with calm words. In response to the assistant judge’s inquiries, however, he spoke again of having “almost no memory” of the day of the crime.
Legal dispute with Sigrid Maurer
The defendant, who in addition to Manfred Arbacher-Stöger was also represented by a lawyer by Rudolf Mayr and Gregor Klammer, had achieved some inglorious fame before the incriminated act by initiating a legal dispute with the Green Club chairwoman Sigrid Maurer. Since then, his alcohol and drug consumption is said to have increased, which led to massive problems in his relationship with his partner.
On April 23 – about a week before the fatal shots – there was a dangerous incident in the 35-year-old’s apartment. The beer innkeeper behaved so badly towards the woman’s family that the 35-year-old’s father threw the man out of the premises. The 43-year-old is said to have drawn a firearm, repeated it, pointed the gun at his father-in-law and fired it into the door frame over his head. Because of this, no complaint was filed, but the 35-year-old definitely didn’t want to have anything to do with the restaurateur anymore.
On April 29, the 43-year-old reappeared armed with a pistol in her apartment, where at that time a neighbor and his 13-year-old daughter were next to the woman. A dealer in his craft beer shop is said to have forgotten the pistol. In the presence of the two he is said to have shot the woman first in the thigh and then in the head. “She also said: ‘The police will get it!’ Then the first shot followed, “reported the neighbor as a witness on the first day of the trial. According to the witness, the accused then said: “Nobody is calling the police!” The beer owner then asked the neighbors to leave the apartment and adopt his children. “In a few years” he would come and fetch her again, said the beer keeper, according to the witness. After that he practically drank two bottles of schnapps and was arrested.
The 35-year-old family had joined the proceedings as a private party. The parents were awarded 15,000 compensation for pain and suffering plus funeral costs of around 16,000 euros. The brothers of those killed receive 7,000 euros each. The children who have become half-orphans and are in therapy now live with their grandparents. They demand 25,000 mourning and shock damage each from their father. The neighbour’s children receive 5,000 shock damage each.
According to the APA count, the bloody act in Brigittenau was the ninth of a total of 31 killings of a woman by her partner or ex-partner this year in Austria.
Source: Nachrichten
