Former Commerzialbank Executive Before Imprisonment

The former board member of the Commerzialbank Mattersburg, which went bankrupt in 2020, Franziska Klikovits is facing the start of her imprisonment. Klikovits was sentenced in February this year at the Eisenstadt Regional Court in the largest trial to date for breach of trust, embezzlement, and fraudulent bankruptcy to six years and four months in prison. She stated on Friday in reports from "Kurier" and "Kronen Zeitung" that she will begin her sentence.

Klikovits: "I cannot put into words how sorry I am"

"I accept the punishment as it is. I did not actively participate in the clarification because I wanted a lenient sentence, but because I owe it to all the victims, and only in this way can they get a comprehensive picture of the events," said the former right-hand woman of ex-bank chief Martin Pucher. Her lawyer wanted to appeal and also file a crown witness application beforehand, Klikovits explained: "I did not want that because it would have been a slap in the face for the victims if I went unpunished and Pucher is unfit to stand trial."

Klikovits did not want a retrial because she wants to "draw a line" under the matter. She assumes that she will have to begin her sentence in the summer. As she already showed in court, Klikovits expressed remorse and said: "I cannot put into words how sorry I am. (...) Through my actions, I have ruined lives and deprived people of their money." She should have said "No" to Pucher at the beginning when she was 19, when he first made an "unlawful request" to her. However, she further stated that he would have "found someone else" then.

Sentence too high in lawyer's eyes

Regarding the fact that the former bank chief is now unfit to stand trial and is not appearing in court himself, Klikovits said: "I do not have the right to judge other people. Everyone must decide for themselves in the proceedings whether they stand by their mistakes and take responsibility for them."

Klikovits' lawyer Johann Pauer, on the other hand, considered the sentence for his client too high in "Standard": "If one receives no reduction for active cooperation, but a considerable sentence reduction due to the long duration of the proceedings, no defense lawyer in the world will seriously advise clients to confess or contribute to finding the truth."

(APA/Red)

This article has been automatically translated, read the original article here.