Husband sentenced to life imprisonment
42-year-old restaurateur was admitted to an institution for mentally abnormal but sane lawbreakers – judgment not final
Salzburg/Zell am See. A 42-year-old Austrian was sentenced to life imprisonment for murder at the Salzburg Regional Court on Thursday. The restaurateur is said to have killed his 30-year-old wife with three knife wounds on May 13, 2022 in Pinzgau. In addition, the man WILL be committed to an institution for the mentally abnormal but sane offenders. The jury’s verdict was unanimous this afternoon, but it is not yet final.
The defendant’s defense attorney immediately filed a nullity complaint and appeal and also wants to challenge the statements about the claims of the private parties. According to the court, the 42-year-old has to pay 40,000 euros in grief compensation to four relatives of the woman who was killed – her parents and siblings.
confession of fact filed
The accused, previously blameless restaurateur is said to have choked the woman who was already separated from him last spring in his inn in an argument and killed her with three knife wounds. Expects a confession of fact before the police and the court. On the first day of the trial on Wednesday, he stated that during an argument with his wife in the kitchen, he “reflexively” took the knife with a blade length of 21 cm and stabbed him. “It was not my intention that I fatally injure her.”
In fact, his defense attorney Franz Essl saw no murder, but “manslaughter in an emotional frenzy”. During the trial he revealed that his client had committed the crime due to insults, insults, infidelities by his wife and her “greed for money” in a generally understandable, violent emotional state and that it was therefore a case of manslaughter. This offense carries a lower penalty than murder.
But the professional judges did not allow the jury to ask the contingent manslaughter question for legal reasons. The three judges stated that the course of the crime does not indicate manslaughter. There is no way that a law-abiding average citizen would act in the same art and manner as the accused. A general comprehensibility is not given, explained the chairman of the jury, Martina Pfarrkirchner.
Adjustment and personality disorder identified
For public prosecutor Katharina Nocker it was clear that the bloody deed was planned – the accused had also prepared his escape. The man had not coped with the separation, developed a massive possessive behavior, insulted his wife, monitored, stalked, injured her and threatened to kill her. At the same time, Nocker modified the prosecution in the process and applied for the accused to be admitted to an institution for mentally abnormal but sane lawbreakers after the neuropsychiatric expert had attested an unfavorable risk prognosis for the accused. The expert had come to this assumption after looking through chat logs and based on the behavior of the accused in the hearing, who had not shown any insight into guilt. She diagnosed the man with an adjustment and personality disorder. The court is following the prosecutor’s request today.