The 52-year-old Syrian who stabbed his wife to death in the Vienna district of Favoriten on February 3 stood trial yesterday, Friday, for murder at the Vienna Regional Court. The verdict in the jury trial – life imprisonment – is also a punishment for the Austrian taxpayer, who will now probably have to feed the Arab, who arrived in the country as an illegal migrant, for decades.
There was no sign of guilt in his confession – on the contrary: “The woman” (he does not pronounce her name Manal even once) was 90 per cent to blame for the break-up of the relationship and its gruesome end. First, she had incited him to “flee” (“It’s time for Europe”, she allegedly said), which he had done obediently and then brought her and her son to join him in 2014.
As soon as they arrived in Austria, “many things started to change in the marriage”. It had always been about money, she had even wanted her own bank account (!), “I don’t know who had persuaded her to do that”. Even the house in Syria, which he had signed over to her for tactical reasons, she did not want to give back to him (actually, the Austrian state would have to confiscate it for the costs of the proceedings and imprisonment).
In 2020, the 45-year-old then wanted to leave him and filed for divorce. She had pushed him out of the bed they shared and had “only been on her mobile phone the whole time”. On the day of the murder in a shelter, he had prepared her “a breakfast with freshly cut fruit”, sat down with her and stroked her hair. However, she allegedly only responded with insults and kicks.With the fruit knife in his hand, he then “had a haze before his eyes” – and stabbed a total of five times. In the neck. Each single stab would have been fatal in itself, the forensic expert attested. Manal bled to death within seconds. Her husband then left the accommodation with his body covered in blood, approached a police patrol that happened to be passing by and stated that his wife had beaten him.
The psychiatric expert declared the man to be sane and culpable, the ” haze ” in front of his eyes being normal in such a situation. The verdict is not yet final: the accused asked for time to think it over after the interpreter had translated the verdict for him.