A brother fight, a gunshot and an attempted murder charge. The suspect denied the accusation on Wednesday and spoke of an accident. Witnesses unexpectedly changed their statements. The jury nevertheless unanimously voted guilty. The sentence – 16 years in prison – is not final.
Prosecutor Christoph Wancata spoke in the jury courtroom of the Salzburg Regional Court on Thursday about “unusual incidents”. According to this, the suspect (33) with nine previous convictions – a man born in Afghanistan – would have shot his younger brother “in the middle of the street” on July 12, 2022. The projectile missed and developed into a ricochet: it bounced off the wall and hit the brother in the abdomen.
So the injury was only superficial. “The defendant has a gun ban. He shouldn’t have had the gun,” emphasized Wancata, who made further accusations: after the crime, he threatened a witness and hit him on the head – even though he had suffered a cerebral hemorrhage only two weeks earlier.
The suspect denied the attempted murder charge, but rather called what happened an “accident”. According to lawyer Bernhard Kettl, it all happened in the gambling world: the victim wanted to go to an illegal gambling shop where the suspect worked as security. A dispute broke out there: “I saw the weapon aimed at him and wanted to take it from him.” In the course of the battle, the shot is said to have gone off.
The accused recreated this scene with the accuser – a crime reconstruction before the eyes of the jury. This was followed by a U-turn: two witnesses, including the victim, told a similar version of the accident and thus acquitted the defendant. During the police interrogation, they spoke of a “targeted” firing of the shot.
The jury’s attempts at an explanation may not have convinced them. They unanimously found the defendant guilty on all counts: 16 years in prison, not final.
Source: Krone
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