Now in court

“Please don’t send me to prison!”

In the end, all pleading was useless and the accused had to go to prison.

(Bild: Dorn Chantall/Krone KREATIV)

A 24-year-old man beat up a bar customer and attacked five police officers after slashing his wrists while intoxicated. During the trial at Feldkirch Regional Court, he pleaded for mercy. 

"I suffer from claustrophobia. Please don't send me to prison," the 24-year-old from Vorarlberg begged judge Verena Wackerle. Especially not at this point in time, when he is about to complete his inpatient therapy at the Maria Ebene Foundation and is seeking an extension. After all, he was well on the way to finally getting his life under control, said the accused.

Sends parents video of bloody deed
Last September, the 24-year-old had initially verbally abused a 59-year-old customer in a pub in Bludenz. When the latter reprimanded him, the heavily intoxicated man punched him twice in the face. Three weeks later, a real tragedy occurred: pumped full of drugs and alcohol, the accused tried to take his own life by slitting his wrists with a box cutter. When he sends a video of this to his parents on his cell phone, the desperate father immediately alerts the police. When they arrive, the 24-year-old attacks five officers with a manslaughter bat, insults them as sons of bitches and threatens: "I'll kill you all!"

However, the accused cannot remember the incident in the pub or the one with the police during the trial. "All I know is that I woke up in the locked ward of the Valduna." While still in the courtroom, the young man apologized to the victims and thanked the police officers for not having used their firearms at the time.

Judge grants postponement of detention for therapy
Although the father of the accused also intervenes again with the Ms. Rat to allow his son to undergo inpatient therapy, she imposes a 15-month prison sentence, ten of which are suspended. In addition, an earlier suspended sentence of three months was revoked. "You were born in '99 and this is the eleventh time you've been here. You've had your hand held out to you so many times - one time is enough," said Wackerle to the newly convicted man. In the end, there is one small ray of hope: "If you extend your therapy at Maria level, you will be granted a reprieve." The sentence is not yet final.