Basel Waaghof-Suicide Appeal Court: Employees’ acquittals are being renegotiated
The suicide of a young Tamil woman in the Waaghof in the summer of 2018 is the subject of the Basel appeal court this week: three guards and a female guard have to face the allegations of negligent homicide again after the first instance acquittal three years ago.
The Waaghof remand prison: A 29-year-old hanged herself here in 2018. The staff initially didn’t understand what was happening.
Bild: Kenneth Nars
The woman died at the age of 29: In June 2018, the Tamil woman was housed in the Waaghof remand prison in Basel and was apparently supposed to be deported. “It was clear to everyone that she was in a psychological state of emergency,” said lawyer Bernhard Rambert in the Basel appeal court on Monday. He represents the woman’s relatives.
In August 2021, the Basel criminal court acquitted three prison guards and one female prison guard of all criminal charges. However, the four defendants clearly violated internal regulations, which is why they still had to cover procedural costs of around 3,000 francs each. The public prosecutor’s office did not accept the acquittals and moved on, and two of the four convicts are also resisting the assumption of costs.
For a long time, the employees assumed that the woman was malingering
The Basel appeal court has been dealing with the case since Monday. It is clear that after a restless night, the 29-year-old woman was moved to the surveillance cell equipped with cameras in the morning: The reason for this was, among other things, the woman’s own safety, although at the same time no explicit risk of suicide was recorded.
The woman ended up hanging herself on a trainer top and this was only noticed after several minutes. Even after that, the employees assumed that the woman was just simulating. A guard finally took off the woman’s pants so that she couldn’t hang herself with them. The woman then remained naked, face down on the floor for several minutes until the employees were no longer comfortable with the matter.
A long 30 minutes until help was there
The video recordings of the cell make it clear how long the time has passed: the woman hanged herself at 12:34 p.m. and the paramedics only arrived at Waaghof at 1:04 p.m. She died in hospital two days later; the lack of oxygen had caused severe brain damage.
Since then, the lawyers have been primarily concerned with the question of whether the woman would have survived if those who noticed her had reacted earlier and at least put the 29-year-old in a side position. The expert is of great importance: Holger Wittig from the Basel Institute for Forensic Medicine wrote the report, was questioned intensively by the criminal court three years ago and had to answer questions in the appeal court on Monday.
He emphasized that if the woman had been properly positioned within the first five minutes, she would most likely have survived. “You could also have tried ventilation. “But the key is to keep the airways clear,” says Wittig.
Video surveillance monitors were not fully monitored
The Securitas employee at the time in the video surveillance center was interviewed on Monday as a person to provide information. He also had to look after the porte at the time of the crime. He admitted that occasionally the monitors were not monitored for “brief moments”. However, the man expressed caution: He may still be under investigation.
Because the defenders see some organizational negligence in the carpet floor of the Waaghof. Attorney Andreas Noll has explicitly filed a criminal complaint against the prison management and other employees. Because this procedure has been temporarily suspended, Noll also threatened the public prosecutor leading the case with charges of favoritism. The public prosecutor then reported him to the Lawyers’ Supervision Commission. “They want to silence me,” Noll said on Monday.
The defendants, aged 40, 46, 61 and 63, remain silent about the allegations; two of them still work at the Waaghof. On Monday, prosecutor Camilo Cabrera called for all four people to be found guilty of negligent homicide by omission and suspension. The three supervisors are to receive conditional prison sentences of between 7 and 9 months, and the supervisor who was called in later is to receive a conditional fine of 180 daily rates. The defense will argue on Tuesday and the verdict will be handed down on Wednesday.
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