SALZBURG. In case of doubt for the accused, the Salzburg Regional Court yesterday acquitted two witnesses in the defamation process: with their testimony, they innocently put Gmundner Peter H. in prison for eight years for murder.
On July 5, 1993, the taxi driver Claudia Deubler (28) was killed by a shot in the neck with a pistol. On the same night, two witnesses, an Austrian from Bangladesh and a Pakistani, wanted to see Peter H., the former Gmundner basic guard, at the scene of the crime in Wals-Siezenheim.
Specifically, they want to have taken the young man with them as a car stopper. H. is said to have shown his military service book to the men at that time. At that time they had read the name "Peter", the main witnesses against H. testified. The Gmundner always claimed that the night of the murder was not in Salzburg but at home in the Salzkammergut. In the meantime, the Upper Austrian has been legally acquitted, the real perpetrators have been convicted.
The trial against the two witnesses involved allegations of defamation and misstatement. Judge Birgit Dunzendorfer was acquitted: Army members with a short haircut were more difficult to distinguish from each other than people in civilian clothes. Apparently the identification of the Gmundner was an error.
There were also "only a few light sources" in the parking lot. The defense lawyer also said that error cannot be punished.
The verdict is not final: both the lawyer for justice victim Peter H., Franz Hitzenbichler, and the lawyer for the father of the murdered taxi driver filed an appeal for nullity. The public prosecutor's office in Salzburg made no statement.
Wolfgang Auer, the defense counsel of Tomi S., submitted a private report that the psychiatric assessment of the leniency Daniel N. (32) did not correspond to the state of the art.
A three-judge senate will review the application and then decide how to proceed, court spokesman Philipp Bauer told APA on Monday.
Until 2003: Peter H. innocently imprisoned as a murderer.
The murder of taxi driver Claudia Deubler (28) on July 5, 1993 in Wals-Käferheim (Flachgau) had caused a lot of sensation. First the Upper Austrian Peter H. was suspected. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison for murder murder in 1994, but was acquitted in 2003 for proven innocence.
The public prosecutor then indicted leniency Daniel N. and his former friend Tomi S. Shortly after the murder, N. testified that S. had shot Deubler and that he himself had participated in the robbery. But the police and judiciary did not believe N. because of his alcohol and drug consumption at the time and because of a psychiatric report by Bernhard Mitterauer. After the acquittal of the Upper Austrian, N.'s statements were taken very seriously.
In 2007 Tomi S. - who always maintained his innocence - was sentenced to twelve years in prison for murder, N. for contributing to the robbery to six months in probation. Defense attorney Auer had then pleaded for an acquittal for S.
The lawyer justified the application for reopening to APA as follows: The jury based the culpability of S. on the psychiatric report by Reinhard Haller, who had attested N. testimony. By contrast, the court-sworn neuropsychologist Klaus Burtscher stated in a statement on Haller's report that Haller's examinations "do not correspond to the state of the art". According to Auer, he presented a "tangled collection of projective and neuropsychological procedures". In addition, essential memory examinations were missing for a reliable finding. Burtscher recommended a renewed assessment by Professor Günther Köhnken.
The robbery of Salzburg taxi driver Claudia Deubler (28) was over 13 years ago. The bloody deed is still not clear. Gmundner Peter Heidegger (33) was once the wrong man. On January 29, 2007, the third attempt to finally close the Deubler court file began.
This time, Tomi S. (30) and Daniel N. (29) are sitting on the dock. Both are no strangers. Tomi S. has been convicted of violence several times, and is currently serving a seven-year prison sentence after being attacked by a covert drug investigator. And Daniel N. spoke for the first time in the Deubler case in 1994.
Shortly after Heidegger was sentenced to 20 years of disclaimer: “He was not the culprit. I was there when the murder happened. “On July 5, 1993, he got into a taxi with his friend Tomi S. to the woman to rob her. Suddenly Tomi S. pulled a gun and shot the defenseless in the neck. A claim that also repeated as a witness in the 2003 retrial process. As is well known, Heidegger has now been acquitted - after eight years of innocent detention.