Gas Line in Vienna Damaged: 25-Year-Old Not Responsible

This was stated by the prosecutor on Thursday at the Vienna Regional Court in the trial against a 25-year-old who had damaged an exposed gas pipe in an apartment with a cutting tool. As a result, an air-gas mixture formed, and according to the indictment, a spark would have been enough to cause an explosion.

As the prosecutor explained, it was thanks to the reaction of the police officers called to the scene in Vienna-Leopoldstadt that there was no explosion or major fire. Neighbors of the 25-year-old had alerted the police because he was apparently smashing the furniture. The officers already noticed the smell of gas in the stairwell and immediately ordered the gas supply to be shut off. In the 25-year-old's apartment, all windows were then opened, and emergency measures were taken by the Vienna Fire Department.

As a fire expert later discovered, with the gas supply intact, an explosion in the affected apartment would have occurred at the earliest after 46 minutes and at the latest after 172 minutes. According to the expert report, without a subsequent fire, the primarily affected apartment would have been destroyed and parts of the building would have collapsed; with a subsequent fire, an "uncontrollable fire event" would have been feared.

25-Year-Old in Vienna Not Criminally Responsible Due to Mental Illness

The 25-year-old could not be punished for the incident. A psychiatric evaluation of the man revealed that he suffers from a florid paranoid symptomatology with minimal reality reference and was therefore incapable of responsibility and thus not criminally responsible at the time of the act. The North Macedonian, who came to Austria in 2021 and had worked on construction sites, told a jury panel that "something suddenly happened to him, as if the devil had come." Then "people came. They wanted to liquidate me. They strangled me like this." When asked why he had tampered with the pipe with a grinder, the man replied, "Everything tormented me so much. I wanted to remove the pipe. I've been working on construction sites for five years."

Had Lived Next to Damaged Gas Pipe for Days

During further questioning of the mentally ill man, it became apparent that he had assumed he had damaged a water pipe, not a gas pipe. Moreover, he had apparently tampered with the pipe as early as February 8 and wrapped the damaged area with cloths "because it started to stink." He spent three days in the apartment, unaware of the danger he was in.

Due to these circumstances, the court considered it a case of negligent endangerment of the public rather than intentional. This offense is not punishable by more than a year in prison, so there was no so-called trigger offense. Such an offense would have been necessary to comply with the prosecutor's request to place the person incapable of responsibility in a forensic-therapeutic center based on § 21 paragraph 1 of the Criminal Code.

Due to the lack of appropriate conditions, the application for placement had to be rejected. The man, represented by defense attorney Andreas Schweitzer, who had been in provisional detention at the Josefstadt prison and had received medication for his severe and persistent mental disorder, was released after the hearing. The prosecutor initially made no statement.

(APA/Red)

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