Ernst Karl

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ernst Karl (born August 1945 in Gaming , Lower Austria ; † June 15, 2001 in Krems an der Donau , Lower Austria) was an Austrian police officer who was convicted of two murders of burglars committed while on duty. In prison he killed a convicted murderer and was henceforth one of the most dangerous criminals in Austria. In 2001 he died under much discussed circumstances on a belt bed at the Stein prison .

Murders

On the night of April 15-16, 1968, the police officer Ernst Karl shot the two intruders Walter P. and Johann K. in the garage of the Tivoli department store in Vienna - Meidling . He said he watched the two men enter the garage while on patrol and followed them to catch them. When they noticed him, however, they are said to have shot him, whereupon he only returned fire in self-defense .

However, since the two men were killed with seven shots at close range, including targeted shots in the head, the investigators did not believe the self-defense version and interrogated Karl. Since two friends of the victims testified that K. had known a police officer and that he had given him a pistol and given the most suitable time for an attack, a comparison was carried out and they identified Ernst Karl. Only after a long and persistent interrogation did Karl admit to having shot the burglars willfully because they were blackmailing him. He had known the two of them for a long time and they blackmailed him for his alleged homosexuality (at that time this was still subject to a one to five year prison sentence in Austria), whereupon he repeatedly paid them large amounts of hush money. However, since they were demanding more and more and Karl had in the meantime made himself a criminal offense in order to raise money, he suggested a burglary in Tivoli , promising them to wear Schmiere uniform for them, since he was on duty that night. After the men entered the garage, he followed them, coaxed them to turn around, and shot them down with several shots. After he shot them in the head, he took the gun he had given Kihsl and which he knew he would carry with him, and fired a shot with it to later reinforce the self-defense situation.

Karl was sentenced to life imprisonment for two murders and transferred to the Stein prison. There he strangled 41-year-old Johann Rogatsch, who had been convicted of murder, with his bare hands on January 15, 1974 in the recreation room of the prison. Karl stated that he acted in self-defense because Rogatsch wanted to force him to break out of prison and then attacked him. After this incident, he was transferred to a special section of the prison that housed only the prison's most dangerous criminals, only seven at the time.

death

Ernst Karl began to suffer more and more from schizophrenia and was plagued by psychotic attacks. He believed that he was being shot at from other cells, that he was being followed by criminal gangs and that he was still working as a police officer. Because of this, he was treated psychiatrically and medically. On June 14, 2001, he had another psychotic flare-up, devastating his cell and breaking his nose. The prison doctor on duty, Dr. Stippler, then gave him an Akineton injection and arranged for him to be placed in a specially secured cell in order to protect him from possible self-harm on the prison's own belt bed. Although judicial officers testified that they carried out checks every half hour during which Ernst Karl slept peacefully, he was dead the next morning. He died of an intestinal obstruction and was pronounced dead at 7:55 am. The photos of the pale and lifeless prisoner tied to the bed, with blood running from his nose and mouth, were made public and, together with the fact that belt beds for restraining prisoners have been banned since 1994, sparked violent public protests.

Legal processing

As a result, it turned out that the bed was not a belt bed as a special safety measure according to § 103 Prison Act according to the legal situation valid before 1994, but a sick bed to which Ernst Karl fixed himself for self-protection within the framework of medical-psychiatric treatment a treatment measure to which prisoners have access under the same conditions as free persons. Such a detention in a medical bed with the possibility of restraint must therefore also take place within a prison if it is necessary from a medical-psychiatric point of view. It is therefore ordered as a medical measure by the prison doctor.

The public prosecutor's office started investigations against the suspected officials and doctors for negligent homicide under particularly dangerous circumstances. The case was investigated by the regional court in Krems an der Donau . In an opinion by the expert Dr. Wolfgang Denk, specialist in forensic medicine, said on April 8, 2002: "... Ernst K. died of the consequences of a mechanical intestinal obstruction in the area of ​​pre-existing adhesions in the abdominal cavity as a result of cardiovascular failure a natural death ... The creation of the Seat belts ... is not causally related to the occurrence of the intestinal paralysis. ”The public prosecutor's office in Krems an der Donau stopped the preliminary inquiries on May 15, 2002 because the restraint of prisoner Ernst K. in the sick bed was necessary from a medical point of view and death occurred was due to a natural cause.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Prison system in Austria (2025 / AB). September 8, 2004, accessed on November 27, 2015 (query response by the Federal Minister of Justice Mag. Karin Miklautsch to the written question (2082 / J) from the MPs Mag. Terezija Stoisits , colleagues to the Federal Minister of Justice regarding the execution of sentences in Austria ).
  2. ↑ New allegations and shocking images. In: DerStandard. July 13, 2004, accessed November 27, 2015 .
personal data
SURNAME Karl, Ernst
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian murderer
DATE OF BIRTH August 1945
PLACE OF BIRTH Gaming , Lower Austria
DATE OF DEATH June 15, 2001
Place of death Krems at the Donau