Kenyan in Austria Acquitted of Murder After Pleading Insanity

Francis N. sitting before the judges in the court room in Vienna on November 28th

A homeless Kenyan man that left the whole of Vienna rattled after he murdered a woman on her way to work, will walk away scot-free from the murder charges after the courts in Vienna after he pleaded insanity to explain his actions.

(READ: Homeless Kenyan Man Accused of Murder in Vienna, Austria)

In May this year, the 21 year old Kenyan man identified as Francis N.  was walking along Ottakaring at the Brunnenmarkt when he spotted two women alight from the bus. The two ladies that were headed to work at that 2.30am, saw the metal bar the man was holding and they crossed the street. The man however caught up with them and attacked one of the ladies, who later succumbed to her injuries.

After it was later discovered that Francis had been living in Austria illegally since he arrived in 2008, had gone through the asylum process and had 18 different charges including convictions for illegal possession of narcotics, assault, resisting arrest, theft and damage to private property; a special commission was set up to investigate details on the young man’s background.

According to the commission, Francis was psychologically unfit and unable to know what he was doing. The commission found that the police were to blame for what happened. Although Francis had been arrested several times, even a few days before the incident for attacking yet another passerby at the same spot; the police treated each case as an isolated one. The police took him in and clearly wrote their reports on each incident Francis was involved in, but they never connected the dots. Had they done so, they would have gotten him the required support he required.

(READ: Homeless Kenyan Declared Psychologically Unfit After Committing Murder)

The psychiatric expert, Karl Datendorfer, who got to examine Francis several times found him to be suffering from “acute untreated paranoid schizophrenia and hallucinations” thus unable to “exercise self control and proper judgement”. Datendorfer therefore recommended that Francis not be prosecuted for the murder. He further found that Francis is dangerous and should instead be committed to a mental health institution for an unlimited length of time.

The jury hearing the case, chaired by Ulrich Nachtlberger, approved the suggestion and will now  handle the application for Francis’ admission to an institution for mentally handicap legal offenders.

The ruling by the court has come under lots of criticism from the public. Some have called for his deportation, which unfortunately cannot be done because unlike Germany, Austria has no treaty with Kenya on exchange of prisoners.

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