Anna (12) case

Acquittal for boy (17) is now legally binding

The acquittal of a 17-year-old last Tuesday at the Vienna Provincial Court is now legally binding.(Bild: SP)

The acquittal of a 17-year-old who was originally accused of abusing a 12-year-old girl in a parking garage in Favoriten in early 2023 at the Vienna Regional Court last Tuesday is now legally binding. As was announced on Friday afternoon, the Vienna public prosecutor's office will not appeal against the decision.

More than a dozen young people were listed as defendants by the Vienna public prosecutor's office. The first trial resulted in an acquittal at the beginning of December. On Tuesday, a 17-year-old Syrian, who came to Austria with his family in 2015, was tried again at the Vienna Regional Court. He was accused of raping Anna (name changed), who was twelve years old at the time and whom he had met at the Motorikpark in Favoriten, in a nearby parking garage.

Surprise at the court's expert opinion
With the legally binding acquittal of the second defendant, the allegations in the second case of an initially alleged rape of the underage girl did not stand up to judicial review.

This is because the offense of serious sexual abuse of minors has not yet been charged in this disturbing case. The accused youths stated that they had never spoken to the twelve-year-old about her age. They had assumed that she was 14 years old.

My client is in a very bad way. She has had to move house and change schools. It is incomprehensible that the expert did not certify post-traumatic stress disorder here.

Opferanwalt Sascha Flatz

"My client is in a very bad way. She has had to change her place of residence and change schools. It is incomprehensible that the expert witness did not certify post-traumatic stress disorder here," said victims' lawyer Sascha Flatz in court on Tuesday, who was annoyed by another point: "It is this boundless contempt for the victim that was clearly expressed here in the trial." The fact that the accused offered 100 euros in compensation instead of the 3,000 euros demanded was "a mockery". The boy took the bill from his defense lawyer and placed it on the table for Flatz. He did not react, Anna's mother was stunned by this action and shed tears. 

Court found "consensual sex"
A 16-year-old boy, who had also been accused of raping the underage girl, had already been legally acquitted of all charges against him last December. 

The sex between the 15-year-old and the schoolgirl at the time of the crime was "completely consensual", the court found at the time. There had been no violence. It was "not apparent" to the teenager that the girl did not consent to this.

The public prosecutor's office and the superior public prosecutor's office (OStA) - the case is subject to reporting, not least due to the sometimes heated media coverage - accepted this decision as well as this week's acquittal.