Two days ago the boy confessed to killing two homeless people in Vienna and seriously injuring another homeless person with a knife – he is presumed innocent. Further questioning revealed drug offenses and a violent crime. Today he has to answer for the violent crime before a jury in Vienna. The teenager severely abused his mother last September. The police announced this at a press conference yesterday.
On September 18th, around two months after the first killing of a homeless person, he is said to have severely injured his mother in Vienna. He hit the woman with his fist. As she fell to the ground, he kicked her torso and head, the Crown reports. According to the public prosecutor’s office, the Viennese woman suffered a bruised skull, multiple bruises on her face and neck and a broken rib.
“I’m talking now, you are quiet”
Several prison guards brought the boy, who was wearing slippers, sweatpants, a blue hoodie and a white shirt underneath, to today’s hearing, in which, on the recommendation of his defense attorney Manfred Arbacher-Stöger, he did not provide any information about the charge against him – this was for intentionally serious Assault – made. The 17-year-old wanted to interrupt the public prosecutor’s opening statement, which she resolutely prevented him from doing (“I’m talking now, you’re quiet!”).
During the further course of the trial, the defendant behaved conspicuously in that he yawned several times, stretched his legs and appeared remarkably disinterested. When asked by the judge whether he was “impaired”, he replied in the negative; he had taken benzodiazepines “a few days ago”.
Negotiation postponed
After the boy’s mother, who was invited as a victim and witness, declined to testify because she did not want to incriminate her son, defense attorney Arbacher-Stöger requested that a psychiatric report be obtained. The lawyer assumes that his client may have grounds for excluding guilt. The boy was probably mentally incompetent at the time of the crime as a result of “severe drug delinquency” – according to Arbacher-Stöger, he was said to have consumed excessive amounts of ecstasy, cocaine and ketamine before his imprisonment. The public prosecutor agreed with this application and clarified it to the effect that a specialist report from a qualified child and adolescent psychiatrist was required. The judge complied, and the matter was postponed indefinitely to obtain the expert opinion.
Whether the 17-year-old will remain in custody until then will probably be decided on Thursday. As the spokesman for the regional court, Christoph Zonsics-Kral, explained in response to an APA request, in connection with the pending double murder proceedings, a decision on the imposition of pre-trial detention as requested by the public prosecutor’s office is no longer expected today.
more on the subject
2 homeless people killed in Vienna: teenager (17) confessed
