An Austrian woman has been handed a four-month prison sentence for aggravated manslaughter after she was found guilty of killing her neighbour by infecting him with Covid-19.
The 54-year-old woman from Klagenfurt is said to have ignored lockdown measures in December 2021 and contracted the virus. A state prosecutor produced forensic evidence that, the court agreed, proved beyond doubt that she had transmitted the virus to her neighbour, who had cancer.
However, the woman’s defence lawyer argued that it was not clear whether the virus was transmitted in person, from a door handle or in another way.
According to eyewitnesses statements from the dead man’s son and daughter-in-law, the defendant and the deceased had a brief interaction in their apartment block landing on December 21st, 2021.
“She looked really sick and I asked her if she had Corona,” the son told the court. “She denied it and said she just had the flu.”
The son added he was worried because he knew how weak his father was, and he had heard how dangerous a Covid infection could be for cancer patients.
In court the unnamed defendant denied being at the door of her apartment on the day in question.
“On that day I could neither get up from the bed nor talk because I was so sick,” she said, “So it can’t have happened that way.”
She also denied having Covid at the time, saying “it was clear to me at the time that this is bronchitis, as I have it every year in winter”.
The neighbour, who was undergoing chemotherapy for cancer, became ill with a lung infection and died from pneumonia due to Covid. The court ruled against the woman after a virological report found an almost perfect match of virus DNA recovered from PCR samples of the accused and the man who later died.
An expert testified to the court on Thursday that the match was “almost 100 per cent”.
“A 100 per cent match is very rare because coronaviruses change so quickly,” the expert added.
The woman’s doctor told the court that she had a fever of almost 40 degrees at the time. After he conducted a rapid test, which came back positive, she told him: “I certainly won’t allow myself to be locked up.”
The state prosecutor called for a conviction, saying the woman “must have been aware” she had the virus.
Presiding judge Sabine Götz said it was “not an easy verdict to reach” and that she was “personally sorry” for the woman.
“I think things like this have probably happened a hundred times,” she added. “But you have the bad luck that an expert has determined with a probability bordering on certainty that it was an infection that came from you.”
- Sign up for push alerts and have the best news, analysis and comment delivered directly to your phone
- Join The Irish Times on WhatsApp and stay up to date
- Listen to our Inside Politics podcast for the best political chat and analysis
