Verdict suspended

Colleague stabbed: “Wasn’t a real baker!”

The 63-year-old stabbed a former colleague in a bakery in Vienna-Ottakring.(Bild: Pratschner Sophie, Krone KREATIV)

In the early hours of the morning, a 63-year-old employee of a bakery probably wanted to talk again after being dismissed. In the bakery, he then stabbed his former colleague in the chest. From the very beginning, the defendant in the Vienna Regional Court had not been satisfied with the victim's work. Just like the professional judges with the jury's decision.

He was not satisfied with the work of his colleague and thought he could do everything much better. And when the bakery owner finally refused the 63-year-old a full-time job last December, it was the last straw - he quit.

"I wanted to get my money"
"I actually wanted to talk to the boss and get my money," explained the man in Vienna's regional court. According to the indictment, he had a knife and a cleaver in his pocket. In the early morning of December 15, 2023, however, he only met his former work colleague in the bakery in Ottakring - "I always showed him everything. He wasn't really a real baker at all," says the accused about the 25-year-old.

The victim was incredibly lucky.

Wiener Staatsanwältin 

He is said to have stabbed the younger man in the chest completely unexpectedly. The young Turk was only just able to avert a second injury with a broomstick. "The victim was incredibly lucky," summarizes the prosecutor. The defendant doesn't see it that way; he claims self-defense. The 25-year-old had attacked him and the stabbing had happened unintentionally during a scuffle ...

The jury believed him, acquitted the 63-year-old of attempted murder and found him guilty of negligent bodily harm. The professional judges find this to be an error. The lay judges' verdict is suspended - the case has to be retried.