Young couple in court for bank robbery in Linz

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A couple stood on Friday in Linz because of a robbery on a bank branch in the Keferfeld district. In June 2020, the 26-year-old is said to have threatened an employee at the financial institution with a dummy bomb. He then apparently gave the booty to his 23-year-old girlfriend. Both were caught shortly after the fact. The man confessed to the fact that the woman does not want anything to do with the robbery and requested an acquittal.

The 26-year-old is also accused of coercion, serious bodily harm and damage to property in connection with an attempt to escape from the Neuromed Campus in Linz in mid-July. The defendant did not deny this either, but spoke of a short-circuit reaction. He was transferred from custody to the forensic department of the hospital because of suicide reports. From there he tried to escape. In the process, he injured a nurse and a nurse, the prosecutor explained.

Three days before June 26 of the previous year, the defendant claimed to have made the decision to rob a bank. “My whole life had collapsed. One by one it failed, ”he said. He had lost the place for the evening school leaving certificate and his part-time job, and he also failed to get his driver’s license. His client is “not a serious criminal but a deeply desperate person,” said the defense attorney. The young man’s debts amounted to around 30,000 euros in June 2020.

According to his own statements, he built a bomb-like object, dug out his old alarm pistol and packed both of them together with his robe in a sports bag. The night before the robbery he slept with his girlfriend. On June 26th they both went on a bike tour. He put the sports bag in the dog trailer of the friend’s bike, the defendant told the court. A short time after the start he is said to have told her that he had to leave again quickly and that she should wait for him. He packed the sports bag and cycled towards the bank.

In the branch he threatened to detonate a bomb if he did not receive money. Then he pulled the alarm pistol and asked an employee to put cash in a black plastic bag. A colleague apparently helped her. When the accused had the booty, he fled, he described the course of events in detail. He returned to his waiting friend and put the bag with the loot back in the dog trailer. Then he said he had to see a friend again, whereupon she cycled home, he wanted to come. On the way there, she was caught by police officers. The 26-year-old later turned himself in voluntarily when the police were standing in front of the friend’s apartment and admitted the “act of desperation”.

The young woman protested that she had not been privy to the plan and declared herself innocent. “There is not a single evidence that my client was involved in the attack,” the defense attorney justified the request for acquittal. She was shocked, “I felt dizzy and sick,” when police officers with submachine guns stopped her. The fact that her boyfriend had unknowingly drawn her into the story hurt her, she looked back.

A judgment is announced for the afternoon.

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