A 36-year-old from Carinthia was sentenced to 19 years in prison for murder by the regional court in Klagenfurt on Wednesday. Born in Slovenia, he admitted to murdering a 48-year-old Italian with an ax in an apartment in Villach last December. He committed the act under the influence of drugs. The verdict is not yet legally binding.
At the beginning of the trial, prosecutor Daniela Zupanc explained in her indictment that the later victim had moved in with the suspect a few days before the crime. The two had used cocaine together when an argument broke out on the day of the crime. “The defendant himself said that it was enough for him. He went to the victim, threw him on the couch and grabbed the ax.” The suspect decorated the ax himself in “Viking style” and eventually committed the crime with it: “It hit five times on the face and side of the skull full force of the victim.”
“will probably die”
“I would almost say it was a bit over the top,” the prosecutor continued. “Each blow, even the first one, was fatal.” She confirmed to the jury that it was definitely murder. When the suspect was asked by the police what consequences he expected from the beatings, he literally said: “that he will probably die”.
Slept with dead people in the same room
Hans Herwig Toriser, the 36-year-old’s lawyer, kept his answer short: his client would answer completely for himself. Two days after the crime, after the man lived next door to the dead man and slept with him in the same room, the 36-year-old went to the police himself.
“It is clear”: did not want a lawyer at first
The suspect – he has been addicted to drugs since his late childhood and has stood trial several times for crimes related to his drug addiction – did not cover up his crime: “I got angry and hit him. I can still remember the first two hits to remind.” He has only vague memories of the days that followed, for example that he tried to withdraw money with his victim’s debit card and that he bought methadone at the pharmacy. When he was half free again, he went to the police. He regrets of the deed, he did not even want a lawyer at first because the case was clear to him, according to the suspect.
Forensic psychiatric expert Walter Wagner explained that the suspect was sane – albeit limited by drugs: “He was able to understand that what he was doing was criminal.”
The defendant accepted the verdict
The jury ultimately ruled eight to zero that the crime was indeed murder. Judge Bernd Lutschounig, the presiding judge of the jury, said the man’s confession and self-surrender was a mitigating benefit, as was his impaired ability to act due to the influence of drugs. The man’s many previous convictions and use of a weapon only made matters worse. The suspect accepted the verdict, the public prosecutor made no statement.
Source: Krone
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