Four prison sentences

Drug addiction triggers brutal robbery

Criminal hearing in the jury courtroom of the Salzburg provincial court(Bild: Tschepp Markus)

Four local addicts stormed the apartment of a man of the same age in Flachgau with two pistols. Because they wanted narcotics. They only found 130 euros. At the trial, all four confessed. And all four are now to serve time in prison.

Wearing balaclavas and armed with two blank-firing pistols, four locals aged between 20 and 29 attacked a young man in Neumarkt am Wallersee - on March 12. Why? "It was about the craving for narcotics. That was acquisitive crime," explained a defense lawyer at the trial on Monday in Salzburg Provincial Court. The quartet made 130 euros in loot during the robbery.

Defendants ask for professional help

But they had been looking for drugs, as all four emphasized in the jury courtroom and also told of their drug pasts: One had already taken cocaine at the age of 15, the other had started injecting heroin at the age of 20. All four are deep in the hole, all four ask for help - in the form of "therapy instead of punishment". They had the idea for the robbery on the evening before the crime. And the victim was known to them and also had drug problems: That's why he had become a target. "We thought he had all sorts of things at home," says one of the accused. But they didn't find any drugs. Instead, they used violence on the victim: the first defendant punched him several times, while one watched the door and the other two searched the apartment.

After the confessions, the sentences ranged from five to two and a half years' unconditional imprisonment. All four sentences are not legally binding. Victims' lawyer Stefan Rieder was able to secure 5000 euros in partial compensation for pain and suffering.