Four and a half years in prison – knife attack at Dornbirn train station had consequences

“This is not a court,” shouts the knife man when the president of the jury, Silke Sandholzer, announces the verdict. He was sentenced to four and a half years in prison. Once for intentionally inflicting grievous bodily harm in connection with the summer knife attack and once for a 2016 felony offense against the same victim, a 27-year-old Afghan. At that moment, the suspect tried to ram a screwdriver into the chest of the compatriot. Thanks to the victim’s thick down jacket, the man escaped with a bleeding but not life-threatening wound.

The suspect denied both attacks
In the process, the Afghan, who has been detained since the summer, denies both the screwdriver and the knife attack. When asked about the facts by the judge and prosecutor, he impersonates the clueless, or gradually presents himself as the actual victim. “I acted in self-defense,” he claims in the case of the knife attack in June. Days earlier he had been ambushed and attacked by three men at Dornbirn railway station. As for the current case, he was attacked by the victim first. This is also confirmed by a witness who also happens to be a friend of the defendant at the trial.

However, the video recordings of the security camera at the station show the opposite. The suspect can be seen suddenly attacking his victim with a knife, inflicting cuts and stab wounds on him. The 33-year-old Afghan now wants to challenge the non-definitive sentence of four and a half years in prison that has been imposed on him.