Trial against kebab stand owner: attempted murder? – salzburg.ORF.at
The 41-year-old owner of the fast food restaurant in Bürmoos (Flachgau) is accused of ramming a knife into the chest of the young Turk in a dispute in May 2021. A few hours earlier he is said to have attacked the victim’s cousin with a wooden sword. The accused is accused of attempted murder and intentionally attempting to cause serious bodily harm.
Prosecutor: “Could have been deadly”
During the attack, the 20-year-old suffered a two to three centimeter long stab in the area of the heart. “He got lucky. If the wound had been deeper or the stab route had been different, the injury could have been fatal,” the prosecutor said. It must also have been quite a stabbing as the victim was wearing a t-shirt, shirt, sweater and down jacket when attacked and at the same time backed away. The blade length of the knife was ten centimeters.
In the second incident, the accused is accused of attacking his opponent with pepper spray and beating him in the head and upper body with a 64 cm long wooden sword. Then he is said to have tried to push his opponent’s eyes inward. The victim suffered numerous abrasions and bruises and conjunctivitis. According to the prosecutor, there are several witnesses for both attacks.
Accused: I only defended myself
The accused described the incidents very differently: he said in court that there had been disagreements between him and another Turkish family for a long time. There had been a trial for assault earlier – in which he was the victim, according to the 41-year-old. Even in the now accused incidents, he only defended himself. His opponent had verbally abused him at an intersection for no reason – the situation then escalated in a nearby parking lot, according to the accused in his statement. In order to defend himself, he took his little daughter’s wooden sword out of the car and struck it in self-defense. He also sprayed the other with pepper spray. He did not intentionally put his thumb in his opponent’s eyes, as the indictment says.
The 41-year-old said that the incident surrounding the attempted murder was also very different from what the public prosecutor had described. The hostile family ambushed him in his apartment building and beat him to the point of being hospitalized after members were said to have smashed the window and door of his snack bar. A knife was not involved at all, even if witnesses report otherwise. The 20-year-old self-inflicted the approximately three centimeter long wound below the heart, the accused said.
Defense attorney: T-shirt allegedly covered in blood burned
The 20-year-old’s behavior after the crime was also not what one would expect, said the 41-year-old’s defense attorney: “He didn’t go to the hospital at first, but to his uncle. A T-shirt allegedly covered in blood was burned in an oven while wearing different clothes.” The knife version was brought into play by a witness two days later. “When the police first came, they didn’t report it.”
The jury trial is scheduled for two days. A judgment is said to have been made on Friday.