Almost Fatal Stabbings in Vienna Water Park: Six Years Imprisonment

On August 5, he stabbed a 33-year-old acquaintance in the water park in Vienna-Floridsdorf. The trigger was a dispute over a mobile phone that the older man had lent to the younger one. The verdict is not legally binding.

The jurors unanimously denied the attempted murder and classified the act as intentional grievous bodily harm. The accused, a young adult at 19, was sentenced under the Juvenile Court Act. His claim that he acted in self-defense was also rejected. While he accepted the verdict, the prosecutor made no statement. He must also pay the victim 9,000 euros in compensation for pain and suffering. The use of a weapon was considered an aggravating factor, while his previously good conduct and the fact that the defendant is under 21 were considered mitigating factors.

The young Bulgarian had been in Vienna for a few weeks. He was a migrant worker, as his defense attorney explained. His parents had moved to Italy to sell fish at a market. He and his five brothers were left with their uncle in Bulgaria. Since the age of 16, he had worked as a laborer. Before coming to Vienna, he had been harvesting tomatoes in the Czech Republic. From there, he intended to return to his homeland. He was told he needed to take the train to Vienna Airport in Schwechat to get to Bulgaria. In the end, he arrived in Floridsdorf and couldn't find his way further. He couldn't speak German and didn't have a mobile phone to check, his defense attorney explained.

Victim was a chance acquaintance from the park

In the water park, he finally met the 33-year-old a week before the incident, with whom he occasionally consumed energy drinks and from whom he also borrowed the mobile phone. On August 5, the man and an acquaintance were again in the Floridsdorf park and were already consuming alcohol in the morning when the young man joined them. Because the 19-year-old wanted to call his mother in Naples to ask her to send him money to Vienna, he borrowed the older man's mobile phone again. However, because the young man took so long, the 33-year-old demanded his phone back after 15 minutes, leading to a loud argument.

From there, the versions of the accused and the victim about the events differed. The older man reported that he and his acquaintance left the park and said goodbye. On the street, he met the 19-year-old again, who waved him over. "I never thought he would stab me," the victim said on the witness stand.

Accused in Vienna spoke of attacks against him

The younger man, in turn, claimed to have acted in self-defense, which was ultimately not believed. During the dispute over the phone, he said he received a blow to the head and a kick to the genitals from the 33-year-old. As he fell to his knees, he was put in a headlock by the man. "I was coughing, crying, and screaming," he told the presiding judge Daniel Schmitzberger. Unable to free himself from the grip, he took a switchblade from his pocket, which he had found on a table in the park days earlier, and stabbed his opponent in the left chest. "After the first stab, he tightened his grip even more," said the 19-year-old, which is why he struck a second time.

The two stabs severely injured the heart and lungs. There was massive bleeding into the chest cavity, as the medical expert Wolfgang Denk explained. Additionally, a tendon in the little finger was almost severed. The man's life was saved only by chance. An ambulance that happened to be present, whose crew was attending to an injured cyclist, took care of the critically injured man. His circulation was already unstable when he was brought to the hospital. An emergency operation, during which the sternum had to be split, saved his life. He remained in the intensive care unit for six days.

(APA/Red)

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