A Syrian (52) who tried to kill his wife insulted Austria’s most renowned psychiatric expert in his murder trial in Linz. He contemptuously said to Adelheid Kastner: “You don’t know oriental culture at all”.
Unbelieving amazement in the Linz Regional Court on Wednesday morning: there a Syrian (52) had to answer for attempted murder. According to the indictment, he stabbed his wife (41) several times in the neck with a carpet knife out of jealousy on the Upper Danube Embankment last May. The fact that she did not die was exclusively due to the courageous intervention of passers-by – a nurse and a priest – eXXpress reported.
Expert witness Adelheid Kastner examined the accused for his sanity. According to her expert opinion, the Syrian is not mentally ill. There was no higher mental-mental abnormality. There was no medical explanation for the gaps in memory claimed by the accused, except that he did not want to remember. All in all, Heidi Kastner declared the Syrian guilty.
This obviously displeased him and did not fit into his defence strategy. “The expert doesn’t even know oriental culture,” he said in the dock to discredit Kastner.
The verdict is to be handed down on Wednesday.