Claudia Deubler murder case

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Claudia Deubler murder is one of the longest and most sensational criminal cases in Austrian judicial history. After the robbery of a taxi driver in the federal state of Salzburg in 1993, Peter Heidegger was convicted on the basis of false testimony and inadequate investigations and was innocent for around eight years, although one of the two real perpetrators had turned himself in to the police shortly after Heidegger's conviction and made a comprehensive confession. Heidegger was finally acquitted after two further negotiations in 2001 and 2003. The two real perpetrators were sentenced to juvenile prison sentences in 2007 because they were minors at the time of the crime. Investigations and proceedings for falsification of evidence and false testimony were initiated against several investigators and witnesses until 2009, but all of these were suspended due to the statute of limitations or ended with acquittals.

Murder and Heidegger's conviction

On July 6, 1993, the 28-year-old taxi driver Claudia Deubler was found murdered in her taxi at Auschneidersee in the Walser district of Käferheim. She had been shot and robbed. The projectile penetrated the larynx and spine and was never found. Just two days later, 19-year-old soldier Peter Heidegger was arrested; two Pakistanis living in Austria had testified that they saw Heidegger near the crime scene at the time of the crime and took them with them by car. Under the pressure of hours of interrogation, he finally made a confession, which he did not revoke until July 23.

On June 10, 1994, Heidegger was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment in the Stein Prison on the basis of testimony, falsified evidence and his confession of murder and robbery . Two weeks later, the then 16-year-old Daniel Neuwirth reported to the authorities, testifying that Heidegger was innocent and that he and his friend Tomi Schöndorfer had committed the robbery. However, the police did not believe the statements. Bernhard Mitterauer came to the conclusion that the adolescent had a disturbance of perception between reality and imagination because of his drug and alcohol consumption. Neuwirth was eventually even charged with defamation. In 1998 the possible murder weapon was found, a Walther P38 , on which, however, no DNA traces were found.

Renewed processes

On January 18, 2001, after numerous efforts by Heidegger and his lawyer, a triple senate of the Salzburg Regional Court decided to reopen the case. Daniel Neuwirth appeared again as a witness and confessed to having attacked the taxi driver together with Schöndorfer, where Schöndorfer suddenly pulled a gun and shot the woman. He disclosed information that only a person involved in the crime could know. Schöndorfer, on the other hand, vehemently denied the act, but could not produce an alibi either, since he stated that he no longer remembered where he had been on that day over seven years ago. The negotiation finally ended with the agreement that after further investigation, a third trial would be conducted. The criminal detention against Heidegger was converted into pre-trial detention, which led to his being released on bail of 800,000 schillings (the equivalent of 58,138 euros). The money for this was raised from donations.

It was not until March 17, 2003 that the new trial began in the murder case, with Peter Heidegger being charged again. Shortly before the trial, however, a DNA analyst succeeded in detecting Daniel Neuwirth's DNA on a cigarette package seized at the crime scene in 1993. The prosecutor saw this as objective evidence that underpinned the credibility of the key witness Neuwirth. On May 16, 2003, Heidegger was finally acquitted of proven innocence. Only three days later the verdict became final and he was awarded more than 950,000 euros in compensation.

Conviction of the real perpetrators and investigations against witnesses and officials

On March 23, 2004, the Salzburg Public Prosecutor's Office initiated preliminary investigations against Schöndorfer and Neuwirth, which ended on May 9 with the indictment against Schöndorfer for murder and against Neuwirth for robbery. On April 13, the Linz Public Prosecutor's Office began investigations against six Salzburg detectives who were accused of false evidence and abuse of office ; Among other things, the testimony of a witness was not even recorded and exculpatory evidence was stored in a gendarmerie post instead of being sent to the court. They had also presented the alleged murder weapon in court, a converted signal pen, without ever being able to prove that it was actually the murder weapon. On January 5, 2006, however, the investigation was closed due to the statute of limitations . On May 19, the Ministry of Justice demanded from five ex-investigators EUR 40,000 in damages each under the Public Liability Act in order to recourse at least part of the compensation paid to Heidegger, whereupon the Salzburg Police Union threatened to report the higher authorities on suspicion of abuse of office.

On January 29, 2007, the trial against Neuwirth and Schöndorfer began before the Salzburg jury court. On April 27, Schöndorfer was sentenced to 10 years and eight months of unconditional imprisonment for murder, Neuwirth to six months of conditional imprisonment for aiding and abetting robbery. The low sentence only came about because both were minors when the act was committed and were therefore convicted under juvenile law. However, at the time of the conviction, Schöndorfer still had two probations due for assault and robbery, which increased his prison sentence to 12 years and 15 days. They had confessed to getting into Deubler's car at around 11 p.m. on the day of the act at Ferdinand-Hanusch-Platz in Salzburg. They directed Deubler to the Auschneidersee in Wals, where Schöndorfer finally shot Deubler. With Deubler's wallet and 3,000 schillings in it, they fled on foot. Since Schöndorfer appealed, there was an appeal hearing before the Linz Higher Regional Court, where his sentence was reduced by 15 days in December 2007. This judgment became final.

In July 2009, the two Pakistani were also charged with defamation and false testimony and brought to justice. They were acquitted because they testified that they were wrong and that this was not a criminal offense. At the beginning of December 2009, the investigations and claims for damages against the ex-investigators were finally stopped because, according to the court, there was no real reason for further prosecution.

additional

On July 6, 2009, exactly 16 years to the day after Deubler's murder, Peter Heidegger was attacked and brutally beaten by five masked men in a house in Steyrermühl . He was found by a roommate and taken to hospital. The background to the attack is not clear.

literature

  • 2865 days: The Peter Heidegger case by Reinhard Grabher

Web links