Woman convicted for fatally infecting neighbour with Covid
An Austrian woman was found guilty of fatally infecting her neighbour with Covid after she ignored quarantine rules and failed to wear a mask.
The 54-year-old from Carinthia was given a suspended sentence of four months and fined €800 (£675) for grossly negligent homicide.
“I really didn’t take the verdict lightly,” Judge Sabine Götz said.
“I feel sorry for you personally – I think that something like this has probably happened hundreds of times.”
“But you are unlucky that an expert has determined with almost absolute certainty that it was an infection that came from you,” she added.
The male victim, a cancer patient, died of pneumonia caused by coronavirus after getting infected in 2021, the court heard before handing down its sentence on Thursday.
Earlier, an expert said the virus DNA matched the defendant and the victim, providing she had “almost 100 per cent” transmitted it.
Such a close match was convincing evidence because coronaviruses change rapidly, the expert said.
The judge said the virological report gave the necessary certainty to reach the guilty verdict.
The names of the victim and defendant in the case at Klagenfurt district court were not released in line with Austrian privacy rules.
Earlier this week, the judge had heard statements from the victim’s family. His son, wife and daughter in law said the neighbours had had contact in a stairwell on Dec 21, 2021.
At that time, the defendant would already have known she had Covid-19.
The family said she was standing in her doorway in the hallway of the apartment building, with the deceased standing opposite her.
“She looked really sick. I asked her if she had corona, but she said no and that she only had the flu,” the son said. He was worried because he knew how dangerous Covid was for cancer patients.
The defendant denied meeting the neighbour at all and claimed she was too sick to get out of bed that day.
‘I couldn’t get out of bed or talk’
She told the court she believed she had bronchitis, which she typically gets every year.
“That day I couldn’t get out of bed or talk because I was so sick. So it couldn’t have happened like that,” she said.
“It was clear to me that this was bronchitis, like the one I get every year in winter,” she said during the trial.
But he woman’s doctor told police that the defendant had tested positive with a rapid test before telling him that she “certainly won’t let herself be locked up” after the result.
Instead she left her apartment and talked to people without a mask, ignoring her mandatory quarantine and positive test.
The Austrian news agency reported the verdict was not final.
It is the woman’s second pandemic-related conviction in a year.
She was given a three-month suspended sentence for intentionally endangering people through communicable diseases last summer.
A verdict of grossly negligent homicide was overturned at that time because of insufficient evidence over how the infection was spread, which led to the recent court hearing.
Far-Right party opposed compulsory jabs
Austria will vote in a general election at the end of this month, and the poll-topping far-Right Freedom Party is predicted to win, completing a remarkable comeback since it was ousted from coalition government in 2019 in a corruption scandal.
It rebuilt its support by exploiting Austrian resistance to compulsory coronavirus vaccinations during the pandemic.
Its manifesto has promised a pardon for anyone convicted of breaching coronavirus rules and to repay any fines imposed during the pandemic.
The manifesto says coronavirus regulations were encroachments on fundamental rights “accompanied by unprecedented indoctrination and brainwashing.”
Even if it wins the elections as expected, the party may struggle to find partners for a coalition government. If it does, the pardon may not survive coalition talks to become national policy.