Three men were again found guilty at the Vienna Regional Court on Wednesday in connection with the terrorist attack in Vienna. Not only did they contribute to the quadruple murder – this guilty verdict was already legally binding – they were also members of the terrorist organization IS. The eight jury members came to this conclusion. The three eventually agreed to terms of twenty years or twice for life. The reason for the renegotiations was a partial annulment of the judgment by the Supreme Court.
This criticized an error in the legal instructions given to the jury and insufficiently specific wording of the verdict; the judgment of February 2023 was therefore partially annulled. However, this had no influence on the guilty verdicts for accessory to murder.
First judgment in February 2023
In February 2023, the now 23-year-old was sentenced to 19 years in prison for arranging the purchase of weapons and ammunition and making contact with the arms broker. Because he was still a young adult at the time of the crime, the maximum sentence in his case would have been twenty years. A 25-year-old who supported the attacker from May 2020 until the day of the attack, knew his intentions, helped choose the target of the attack and prepared to escape by obtaining false papers, was sentenced to 20 years . The 29-year-old, who encouraged the later murderer to commit the crime until the day of the attack and laid out the murder weapons, ammunition and other paraphernalia in the killer’s apartment, was given a life sentence.
The only question discussed Wednesday was whether they were also members of a terrorist organization. Essentially, the only question was whether they were part of the terrorist organization Islamic State (IS). The suspects are not guilty of this. The public prosecutor obviously saw it differently. “It is irrefutable that the three contribute to the many murders. Only the punishment is still in your hands (…). They will be sentenced in the strongest possible terms,” she addressed the jury in her closing argument, calling for the maximum sentence. It is also questionable whether two of the suspects sent IS propaganda. The prosecutor did not believe the defendants had distanced themselves from radical Islamist ideology. “IS ideology has the highest priority for the defendants.”
“How much does his guilt weigh?”
“How much does his guilt weigh?” was the central question to the jury in the closing argument of Zaid Rauf, the 25-year-old’s lawyer. He appealed for a lower sentence than the twenty years his client received in the first trial. “What weighs so much that you can take twenty years away from someone? Even if he had done nothing, even if he had not known the killer, the attack would have happened.”
For example, his client’s comment on one of the killer’s confessional posts with “Jeje” (as in “jaja”, note) was interpreted as a psychological contribution to the crime. “Do you think that if he (the murderer, ed.) had not received the ‘Jeje’, he would have turned around and gone home?” He thought the punishment was excessive. “Give him back a few years,” he asked the jury.
‘The main perpetrators can no longer be punished’
Elmar Kresbach, the 29-year-old’s lawyer, drew attention – as he did several times during the trial – to the difficulty that “the main perpetrator can no longer be punished” because the attacker died in the attack. The great danger is that “we want to see someone punished, but we cannot punish the actual perpetrator.” But they had to ‘leave the church in the village’, and he also demanded a considerably lower sentence for his client. The 23-year-old’s defender also agreed with the statements of the two previous speakers. “Just because someone is a believer, I cannot blame him for being a member of a terrorist organization.”
Ultimately, his client himself spoke up and brought up a miscarriage of justice that has not yet been discussed. He himself was sentenced to 19 years in prison for making contact with the arms broker. This in turn lasted a lifetime. The actual arms dealer, on the other hand, got away with a nine-month suspended sentence, because the proceedings regarding the assault rifle were wrongly dismissed and the Slovenian could ultimately only be prosecuted for a handgun. “I wonder where justice lies,” the defendant said. Shortly before 2:30 p.m., the jury met to deliberate on the questions put to them.
Arms broker sentenced to life in prison
With those three men, three others were in the dock from November 2022 to February 2023. The arms broker was sentenced to life imprisonment, the appeal was not accepted by the Vienna Supreme Court in January this year and the sentence is final. The trial of two men who were acquitted of complicity in murder but convicted of membership of a terrorist organization also had to be reopened. In the end they counted 18 and 21 months, six or seven of which were unconditional.
Source: Krone
I am Wallace Jones, an experienced journalist. I specialize in writing for the world section of Today Times Live. With over a decade of experience, I have developed an eye for detail when it comes to reporting on local and global stories. My passion lies in uncovering the truth through my investigative skills and creating thought-provoking content that resonates with readers worldwide.
