2024-10-29 12:49:00
With the discussion of several reports, the trial against a reckless speeder who evaded police control on the night of December 9, 2023 and gave the executive a wild chase across the city continued on Tuesday at the Vienna Regional Court. The 35-year-old caused several accidents and two people were seriously injured. The defendant did not confess to the intent to kill when the trial began in mid-July.
The man defended by Rudolf Mayer and Lukas Hruby (Arbacher-Stöger law firm) now confirmed this again. He “would have driven through a gap” and “could have braked at any time,” he assured the jury. He certainly had no intention to kill: “I didn’t think anything of it.”
The man drove towards two police officers who stood in the way of the speeder. A roadblock had been set up in the Gaudenzdorfer Belt – Eichenstrasse area, which the speeder avoided by hitting a vehicle and heading towards the police over a traffic island. “I stood in front of him with my gun drawn and said ‘Stop! Police! Stop!’ called,” one of the officers later said. The driver “drove across the traffic island at full speed. Without taking me into consideration. He simply didn’t give a damn. He would have totally knocked me down one hundred percent.”
The officers managed to reach safety at the last moment by jumping to the side. As a traffic expert now explained, the Jaguar was not traveling at 70 to 80 km/h at that time – as originally assumed by the public prosecutor’s office – but at a maximum of 30 km/h. In the event of a collision with the police officers at this speed, “serious, but usually not fatal, injuries would have been expected,” said forensic pathologist Nikolaus Klupp.
On December 8th, the defendant bought a Jaguar that was over 20 years old and no longer registered for traffic from his cousin. The car mechanic no longer had a driver’s license – it was confiscated from him in 2017 for drunk driving. On his very first ride he caught the attention of a civilian patrol. At an intersection on the Mariahilfer Belt, the police officers noticed the man behind the wheel casually dangling his left arm out of the open side window with a joint in his hand. They also noticed the smell of cannabis and wanted to check the driver. He then stepped on the accelerator and drove away from the police officers who gave chase.
As a result, the 35-year-old crossed several intersections at excessive speed despite the red light, endangering other road users and pedestrians who were crossing the road when the green light was green. The public prosecutor interpreted this as intentional endangerment of the community – the physical integrity of at least ten people was in danger. The 35-year-old confessed to this charge.
The same applied to the grossly negligent assault he was accused of causing bodily harm to a cyclist. The defendant caught him at Matzleinsdorfer Platz by driving into his rear wheel and causing him to fall. The fact that the 46-year-old was wearing a helmet may have saved his life. The cyclist hit his head against a hard object – probably the asphalt floor – and suffered a severe concussion, but no broken bones. The helmet that was destroyed in the accident “probably prevented a fatal traumatic brain injury and a skull fracture. The helmet may have saved his life,” noted forensic pathologist Klupp.
At the Landstraßer Belt the speeder finally got into the opposite lane and continued his journey as a wrong-way driver. He crashed into an oncoming car containing a family of four. The mother, who was sitting in the passenger seat, was seriously injured. She suffered fractures of several thoracic vertebrae and a cervical vertebra as well as a torn cruciate ligament and lateral meniscus tear in her right knee. There was no danger to the life of the 52-year-old. The defendant also pleaded guilty to this serious bodily harm.
Only after this collision did the Jaguar finally come to a stop. The driver tried to escape, but was caught by the police. As it turned out, the man was only released from prison in the Czech Republic on January 12, 2023 after serving a prison sentence of several years. In spring 2019 he was caught in Brno without a driver’s license with a significant amount of cannabis and several pistols and a Kalashnikov in the trunk. At that time too, he tried to evade police checks and led the Czech police on a dangerous chase across Brno. He was sentenced to seven years in prison for, among other things, endangering the community, drug-related offenses, illegal possession of weapons and other offenses and was released early for good behavior after half of his sentence had been served.
After a lunch break, the closing arguments by the public prosecutor and defense follow at the State Court for Criminal Matters. The jury then retires to consider guilt and punishment. The verdict is unlikely to be announced before 5 p.m. The hearing is advertised until 7 p.m. If convicted as charged, the 35-year-old could face ten to 20 years or life in prison.
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