A 28-year-old woman, who on October 7, 2024, stabbed her partner, who is one year older, three times in the upper back during an argument in their shared apartment in Simmering, was sentenced to two and a half years of unconditional imprisonment at the regional court on Tuesday. The jury denied the incriminated murder with a vote of 7:1. A conviction for serious bodily harm was made.

With a penalty threat of up to five years, the court deemed 30 months appropriate for the act and guilt. A conditional or partially conditional suspension of the sentence was not considered, despite the 28-year-old's previous clean record. The presiding judge, Christina Salzborn, justified this with the "vehemence of the act" and referred to an "impulse control disorder" of the perpetrator.

"At that moment, I just wanted to free myself"

The prosecutor assumed an intent to kill: "She seriously injured her. If the woman had not been quickly and properly treated with emergency medical care, she would have died." The defendant, on the other hand, assured that she "never, never" wanted to hurt her partner. The 29-year-old had tried to calm her down after the argument and followed her into the kitchen, where she was cutting veal with a knife to feed it to her dog: "She suddenly came to me unexpectedly and hugged and held me tightly."

She wanted to free herself from the embrace, the defendant described: "At that moment, I just wanted to free myself. I didn't realize that I had the knife in my hand. I didn't feel or notice that I had the stupid knife in my hand."

During the "flailing," the stabbings occurred, claimed the defendant, who repeatedly broke into sobs during her testimony. She was not aware of what she had done: "I was totally hysterical and tearful." After the stabbings, her partner "let go of me and left the apartment."

"This is just ridiculous. This is simply a protective claim," the prosecutor reacted to this responsibility. She told the jury that the stabbed woman fled to the stairwell, went one floor down, and rang a neighbor's doorbell. Then she collapsed, fainted, and lost consciousness. The neighbor notified the police and rescue services. Meanwhile, the defendant cleaned up the traces of the crime in the apartment: "She doesn't help her. She doesn't run after her. She cleans the knife."

"She has been crying for weeks because she can't see her"

"There is no motive. There is no plan. There is no dead victim. There are no vengeful relatives," said defense attorney Ernst Schillhammer in contrast. Rather, the victim suffers just as much from the events as the accused. Addressing the partner sitting in the audience, who was intermittently crying, Schillhammer explained that the 29-year-old had long since forgiven his client: "She is not only crying today. She has been crying for weeks because she cannot see her." The 29-year-old is not allowed to visit the accused in prison: "They want nothing else but for her to be released so they can continue their life together."

The severely injured woman initially told the police during her interrogation at the hospital that she had been stabbed by unknown perpetrators on her way home. It was only when a DNA report revealed that secretions with the victim's blood were found on the knife secured in the kitchen sink, confirming it as the weapon, that the 29-year-old's partner was taken into custody. From that point on, the victim refused to provide any information about the crime to avoid incriminating her partner. "She exercised her right to remain silent. She is still in love with her. They are supposed to get married," the prosecutor revealed.

The accused confirmed this. When asked about her future plans, the 28-year-old, who had recently worked as a kitchen assistant, replied: "To propose to her and start a new life." Apart from that, she wants to "go into therapy." She hopes to achieve "emotion regulation" and help with "stress reactions on a relationship level."

The blade of the weapon caused the victim two two-centimeter wide and one one-centimeter wide injuries with air inclusions in the right rear chest wall. The woman suffered a blood-air chest filling and signs of an impending blood shock.

Stabbings After Visit to Kaiser Wiesn in Vienna

The two women had visited the so-called Kaiser Wiesn - the Oktoberfest in Prater - on the night of October 7 and consumed alcohol. A jealousy scene ensued after the younger woman danced with a stranger. On the way home, the 28-year-old accused her partner of having made her wallet and phone disappear in return. At home, the argument "escalated more and more," said the prosecutor. Although the accused had taken the dog out for a walk in the meantime, it led to physical altercations and eventually to the nearly fatal stabbings.

At least from the perspective of forensic pathologist Nikolaus Klupp, the accused's account of how the injuries occurred was not plausible. When asked if they could be the result of flailing hands, the expert said: "Based on life experience, I am rather disinclined to believe that."

In Austria, women experiencing violence can find help and information, among others, at the Women's Helpline at: 0800-222-555, www.frauenhelpline.at; at the Association of Autonomous Austrian Women's Shelters (AÖF) at www.aoef.at; Violence Protection Center Vienna: https://www.gewaltschutzzentrum.at/wien/ and at the 24-hour Women's Emergency Hotline of the City of Vienna: 01-71719 as well as the Women's Shelter Emergency Hotline at 057722 and the Austrian Violence Protection Centers: 0800/700-217; Police Emergency Number: 133

(APA/Red)

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