An Austrian court has held a woman responsible for the death of her neighbor as a result of a corona infection. The Klagenfurt Regional Court concluded that the 54-year-old defendant had infected the cancer-stricken man in December 2021.
As a result, she was sentenced to a suspended sentence of four months for gross negligence in the killing of a person. She was also fined 200 daily rates of four euros each, a total of 800 euros. However, the verdict is not yet final.
Convicted by genetic analysis
The neighbor died as a result of corona-related pneumonia. An expert had determined through genetic analysis that the viruses of the deceased and the defendants were “almost 100 percent” identical. The expert emphasized that such a high degree of similarity is rare, as corona viruses usually change quickly.
Read also
“I feel sorry for you personally – I think that something like this has probably happened hundreds of times,” said the judge in her verdict. “But you are unlucky that an expert has determined with almost absolute certainty that it was an infection that came from you.” That is enough to find the defendant guilty, explained the judge.
Quarantine ignored
The woman had already been sentenced to a three-month suspended sentence in July 2023 for intentionally endangering people through communicable diseases. In December 2021, despite a positive corona test, she had not complied with the quarantine, left her apartment and talked to other people without a mask. The death of the neighbor was now dealt with in a separate procedure.
According to the deceased’s family, he had met the infected woman in the hallway. She herself explained that she was too ill to leave the house and assumed she had bronchitis – “like every year in winter”.
