A construction worker from the Czech Republic, who killed two of his colleagues in a hotel in the Austrian capital of Vienna in the course of one week in July, will not have to answer to the court for double murder.
The Vienna prosecutor’s office requested his placement in a specialized psychiatric facility, its spokeswoman Nina Buseková announced on Wednesday. The Czech allegedly suffers from a severe form of paranoid schizophrenia, reports TASR according to a report by the APA agency.
In the case of both victims, they were Slovak citizens who worked with the perpetrator for the same company and were staying together in a hotel near Vienna’s Franz-Josefs-Bahnhof railway station. The spokeswoman recalled that the suspect was detained on the basis of a European arrest warrant in the Czech Republic a day after the last act, while a few days later he was handed over to the Austrian authorities.
Immediately after the arrest, he seemed to admit the facts related to the actions, but at the same time he claimed that he was attacked or that he feared for his own life. As a motive for his actions, he stated that he felt “threatened” by both colleagues and based on his belief that both Slovaks “belonged to the mafia”. The police later disputed these claims.
However, on the basis of a psychiatric report requested by the prosecutor’s office, it was found that the 34-year-old man was under the influence of a serious mental disorder at the time of the acts, which played a key role in his actions, writes APA.
He punched and kicked his victims numerous times, even throwing one out of the hotel window on the fourth floor.
Experts from the field of psychiatry qualified the perpetrator as mentally incapable of being responsible for his actions. However, they pointed out that he is dangerous for the neighborhood and in the future he could again commit an act with serious consequences. In an opinion from the end of September, according to the findings of the APA, the expert spoke in favor of the indefinite placement of the man in a specialized psychiatric facility.
The perpetrator’s paranoid schizophrenia manifested itself at a young age, but it was never treated. He himself claimed to be fine and refused medication.
