All parties are considering higher compensation for people who have been wrongfully imprisoned. At the moment, people sometimes get less for imprisonment than for a botched vacation.
“You may leave the courtroom as a free man,” said the judge to Leon’s father. Before that, he had spent 523 days in custody. A jury recently found that the father was not the murderer of his mentally handicapped son, who drowned in the Kitzbüheler Ache at the age of six. The public prosecutor had assumed that the father had fabricated a robbery and killed his child himself. The verdict is final and the public prosecutor is not appealing against the acquittal.
It happens again and again that people are held in custody for a long time but are then acquitted. For example, a man was held in custody for 582 days before being acquitted of suspicion of misusing subsidies. And it cannot be ruled out that a person will be convicted and only after a certain period in prison will his innocence become apparent. In all of these cases there is compensation for the detention. But it is low. So low that politicians are now calling for more money for innocent people imprisoned.
