A 30-year-old must answer to a jury because he is said to have inflicted serious head injuries on his three-month-old son with at least partial intent to kill. According to a forensic report, the boy “clearly” died as a result of shaken baby trauma. The defendant pleaded “not guilty.”
“A shaking never happened. Neither intentionally nor unintentionally,” the defendant asserted. He had nothing to do with his son’s injuries and death. “I have an explanation, but I keep being told that I’m not a doctor and just a commoner,” the man suspected, adding that there could have been medical errors during the emergency medical treatment of the three-month-old boy in a hospital. The 30-year-old emphasized that the doctors had performed a drainage twice without his consent.
The boy’s mother went to a hospital with her son at around 11 p.m. on February 3rd, where treatment for the infant, who had been abused according to the charges, began immediately. Any medical help came too late for the baby. The toddler probably no longer had any brain functions at the time of hospital admission. On February 6th, life support equipment was switched off and the boy was pronounced dead.
The hospital subsequently alerted the police because the baby had brain injuries that typically indicate so-called shaken baby trauma. In addition to the head injuries, the baby also had older injuries – a broken rib and a broken arm.
The parents were subsequently arrested and taken into custody on suspicion of murder. However, the mother was released at the end of May and the investigation against her has since been discontinued.
“Don’t let yourself be lulled”
From the perspective of the public prosecutor, there is no longer any suspicion against the 27-year-old. “The child is dead. He is the only one who is eligible,” said public prosecutor Franziska Fent at the beginning of the trial, looking in the direction of the defendant. “He denies it vehemently. Don’t let yourself be lulled,” the prosecutor appealed to the jury to follow the trial carefully.
The mother, who had been in a relationship with the defendant for more than ten years, attended a birthday party with her two-year-old daughter on the afternoon of February 3rd. The father was home alone with his son from 3 p.m. to 10 p.m. The prosecutor had no doubt that the brain injuries found must have occurred in those seven hours: “We don’t know what exactly happened in those seven hours. But a baby, an infant, can be particularly nerve-wracking in seven hours.”
The family, registered at an address in Vienna-Liesing, was not known to the youth welfare office. In the past, no incidents regarding the daughter, who was born in 2022, had ever been reported to the authorities. Defense attorney Astrid Wagner emphasized that her client was “a responsible family man” who treated his children very lovingly. The allegations against him do not fit his personality: “He is a quiet person. Violence is alien to him.” The accusation sounds plausible, but it is “put together, constructed. It may or may not have happened that way,” said Wagner. The investigative authorities “got stuck” on the father. They considered him to be the only possible perpetrator: “They were no longer open to other options.”
This threatens in the event of a conviction
The jury trial is scheduled for two days. On the first day, several witnesses – including the boy’s mother, who was also originally suspected of murder but was released at the end of May as no longer a suspect – and a psychiatric expert are to be heard. The coroner and a neuropathologist will not give their reports until October 24th. Then the negotiation should come to an end. The person, who has previously had no criminal record, faces ten to 20 years or life in prison if he is found guilty as charged.
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