Emotions are running high in Austria after a migrant who raped a 72 year old woman was given what some considered to be an unduly short sentence for the crime, and now the judge presiding over the case has had to take police protection.
Breitbart London previously reported on the case where a then 17 year old migrant brutally raped a 72 year old pensioner in the town of Traiskirchen, Austria. The judge in the case gave the rapist a sentence of only 20 months and so prevented him from being deported back to his home country.
Austrians were outraged at the verdict and many took to social media to express their anger to the judge. The judge received so many complaints that police have had to be called to watch her because of fears there may be reprisal from locals in the Upper Austrian region, where many are displeased with her verdict, reports the Kurier.
According to police the judge threatening emails and death threats. Two vice presidents of the district court said, “that is pretty worrying. The reason for the punishment is the guilt of the offender. It does not matter what nationality or religion they are,” blaming the threats on xenophobes and ant-migrant right wing activists.
The pair said that the judge in the case was justified and that they must use the legal framework to prescribe the correct punishment and that in this case the penalty was “fully justified”.
Despite their remarks regarding legal framework, it remains true that the sentence given is quite significantly short of the maximum that could have been handed down. Even for juvenile offenders, as is the case for this rapist the sentence for violent rape can be up to five years in prison.
The judges said the rapists confession to the crime was enough to grant him a lesser amount of time in prison, and that in any case the state prosecutor made no complaints about the proposed punishment. As there was no objection from anyone in the court the decision stood.
Threats against judges in Austria are very rare, and only normally observed during divorce proceedings. In one such case in 2010, a man in the town of Krems attempted to take revenge for a divorce decision presided over by a judge. The former art teacher shot and killed a worker of the court because he didn’t want to risk attempting to go through an armed man who was protecting the judge at the time. He received a life sentence and courts across Austria have maintained tighter security precautions ever since.
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