After a robbery on a 32-year-old in an apartment house in Wals-Siezenheim (Flachgau) on the night of April 3, 2021, four defendants were sentenced on Tuesday to unconditional imprisonment of two and a half to five years in Salzburg.
The Romanians are said to have injured the compatriot with fists, kicks, a knife and a baseball bat and stole 25,300 euros. They admitted being beaten, but asserted that they had seen neither a knife nor money.
The suspects were not convicted of theft and attempted deliberate grievous bodily harm. A 30-year-old received three and a half years, a 23-year-old two and a half years, a 41-year-old five years, and a 27-year-old three years imprisonment. The prosecutor asked for time to consider. The defense attorney waives the right to appeal. The senate of lay judges, chaired by Judge Gabriele Glatz, awarded the victim 27,800 euros in damages and partial compensation.
The Home Invasion was carried out by a total of six perpetrators in the pimp milieu. The 32-year-old Romanian is said to have celebrated the night before in the rented apartment with a friend and two prostitutes. Because there were differences about the payment, according to the indictment, the women and the acquaintance left the house. A little later, a brother of the 23-year-old defendant, who is currently being persecuted separately by the authorities, knocked on the door. Because this was not opened, he threatened the 32-year-old on the cell phone that he would come with his brothers from Berlin and kill him.
The following night, one of several masked men broke into the apartment through the balcony door and opened the front door for the accomplices. They attacked the defenseless victim who had slept on the bed, as the prosecutor successfully did. With the words “Where is the money? Open the safe” and “Give me all the money you have, otherwise I’ll kill you”, they are said to have stolen the 25,300 euros, a mobile phone and a pack of cigarettes.
The assaulted 32-year-old suffered four bruises on his head, a cut in his right thumb and a bruised skull. The perpetrators fled with two cars and the cash they had captured. In the course of a large-scale manhunt, a black car was arrested by the German police at the Laufen border crossing and four defendants were checked. 2,580 euros were secured. The victim’s blood was adhered to a 500-euro banknote, as was later discovered. At the scene of the crime and on clothing, investigators found the DNA of the accused. The other two suspects are said to have been arrested in the meantime.
The presiding judge confronted the 41-year-old accused with a phone call from a separately pursued main offender with the victim, in which he had offered the 32-year-old to return the stolen money, if he dies, withdraws the complaint and releases four arrested persons. “I didn’t notice anything of these discussions,” replied the 41-year-old. Like the other accused, he said that none of them had a knife with them. The 32-year-old received blows, then they left. “I swear on my life, I have seen no safe and no money”.
The 30-year-old defendant said when the public prosecutor asked where the 2,580 euros that were found in the car at the police control in Laufen came from, the money had been received by a fellow inmate from a car sale. He drove with the 27-year-old defendant from Berlin to Salzburg after they received a call informing them that the 32-year-old had taken the prostitutes’ identity cards. “We came there to have the IDs returned to the women and to reconcile us. He was in the living room and we talked. He didn’t want to return the IDs. He said he wanted women to work for him, he said be the smart one. ” Then she started beating him. “There was no talk of robbery. Nothing was taken away.” And the 23-year-old defendant said that the 32-year-old threatened his brother.
The defense attorney said none of the defendants stole money from the 32-year-old. There was no robbery, but qualified coercion. The victim’s lawyer, Franz Essl, spoke of an “insidious robbery” which his client fell victim to as a complete surprise. “A gang of six attacked a defenseless man who was sleeping.” Before the start of the trial, Essl told the APA that the prostitute would have seen all the money in the man’s apartment.
The sentences range from one year to 15 years imprisonment. The youngest of the defendants has so far been innocent, the others have already appeared in court several times. The 41-year-old had already been convicted of theft 13 times in several European countries.