Austria: Scandalous verdict for Afghan asylum seeker after sexual abuse of 7-year-old girl

The crime shocked the whole of Austria last summer. A 16-year-old Afghan had sexually abused a 7-year-old girl in Schärding and then beaten up her father. Now he was on trial in Ried in the district of Innkreis. The sentence caused outrage.

The sentence for the 16-year-old Afghan refugee is 30 months for severe sexual abuse of minors. However, anyone who believes that the perpetrator will serve the two and a half years is mistaken. Two thirds of the sentence were conditionally waived for the child abuser. So he will only have to serve 10 months. In addition, the Afghan was ordered to undergo therapy and was assigned a probation officer. He also has to change his place of residence, as he has to stay at least 10 kilometres away from his 7-year-old victim. 500 euros in compensation for pain and suffering were also awarded to the little girl. Further claims could be brought in civil court.

Since the court of lay assessors met in camera, the reasons for the lenient sentence for the sex offender cannot be understood. According to § 206 StGB “Serious sexual abuse of minors”, a significantly higher sentence would have been possible, even against the background that the sentence is reduced by half due to the juvenile age of the offender according to the Juvenile Court Act. But it has become symptomatic of the justice system to be particularly lenient with criminal foreigners.

While Federal President Alexander van der Bellen or the political party of the Greens call for the “humanitarian” admission of more Afghans to Austria, cases like this one show the turmoil of uncontrolled migration. The fact that a 7-year-old girl is lured into the cellar and sexually abused by a “neighbouring boy” – as some newspapers euphemistically wrote last year in order to disguise the migration background – or that, as in Vienna, a 13-year-old girl is raped to death by four Afghans, apparently does not lead to a rethink. The problems of migration policy are also reflected in the numbers of inmates in Austrian prisons. Of a total of 8,486 inmates, almost exactly half are foreign nationals – and this despite the fact that foreigners make up only 17 percent of the population living in Austria.

https://www.wochenblick.at/skandal-urteil-fuer-afghanen-nach-missbrauch-einer-7-jaehrigen-in-ooe/