Intent to kill or for “quiet sleep”?

The qualification of murder has now been fulfilled: The Zurich High Court came to this conclusion in contrast to the lower court, which had sentenced a 55-year-old Kosovar “only” to 8.5 years for attempted murder. The accused, who tried to kill her now 50-year-old husband in an apartment in Zurich on April 5 and 6, 2018, is now being sentenced to 14 years in prison.

In addition to attempted murder, she is also guilty of social welfare fraud and assault, for which there is a conditional fine of 130 daily rates of 10 francs and a fine of 1,000 francs. The couple had not declared properties in Kosovo to the social authorities in 2016. There is no outpatient measure. The expulsion period will be increased from 7 to 12 years. She has to pay her husband compensation of 9,000 francs.

The 50-year-old husband is acquitted of multiple sexual assault and rape charges. He is sentenced to 5 months imprisonment for social welfare fraud and violation of the weapons law. He has to serve this because of a criminal record.

Final line as an act of revenge

As the presiding judge Beat Gut justified the motive, the woman probably wanted “to draw a line under their relationship in a radical way in a kind of revenge act”. Otherwise there was absolutely no reason to order the husband into the apartment again. The escalation curve in marital conflicts has clearly pointed downwards. The man had already moved out of the apartment.

She may have suffered for years in the marriage and then got “a kick in the butt” from her husband, who left her, when he told her that he was going to give away the properties to a rival. Since her “fuses blew” and she had procured medicines. The court is convinced that the wife – contrary to what the defense attorney said – called her husband and told him to pick things up at the apartment.

Intent to kill only after strangulation

The accused admitted that she had given him the medication. The court assumes that the man was sedated the next morning and does not believe the wife’s story about the attack and self-defense. It is inconceivable that the woman would have remained completely unharmed. The court narrowly failed to accept that she had already intended to kill when she was administered the medication. When the defenseless person was strangled with the cable the next morning, however, she clearly had the intention to kill.

The credibility of the woman’s statements are very low at all. That is why the husband was acquitted of the rape allegations. The woman kept changing her versions. There is no evidence whatsoever for the alleged sexual offenses, there are only the statements of the wife. The court assumes that the man was “not an innocent lamb”. However, their statements were not enough for a conviction.

As co-referee Claire Brenn emphasizes, the point is not that a victim has to remember every detail of a rape. However, the wife was not able to describe these acts without any contradiction.

Judgments SB210009 and SB210010 of March 29, 2022, not yet final.

At the first-instance trial before the Zurich District Court, the two accused avoided each other and followed the negotiations separately using video transmissions. Now the Kosovar couple, who are still married, are sitting just a few meters apart in the same room at the same time: the husband, who is said to have terrorized his family for years but was acquitted of these allegations by the lower court, and the mother of four, who is said to have tried to kill her husband with a drug cocktail in his favorite drink.

The now 50-year-old husband, who had a relationship with a younger woman, had already left home. On April 5, 2018, his now 55-year-old wife is said to have lured him back into the apartment on the pretext that he still had to pick up things. In the apartment she offered him his favorite drink, made from water, honey and grapes, which she had previously mixed with psychotropic drugs and sedatives. The husband drank two glasses and fell into a deep sleep. Because he did not die, the woman is said to have put a cable around his neck the next morning and pulled it tight. However, two daughters who entered the room prevented the crime from being completed.

Rape allegations under investigation

In November 2020, the woman was sentenced to 8.5 years in prison and 7 years of expulsion from the country for attempted murder and other offences. After the verdict was announced at the Zurich District Court, the paramedics had to be called out because she had become unconscious. Her husband, who was accused at the same time and whom she had leveled with serious allegations of domestic violence during the investigation, was acquitted in dubio pro reo of the offenses of multiple rapes, sexual assault and assault. None of the parties have accepted the judgments of the lower court, so that the appeal hearing is now taking place at the higher court.

The two accused describe completely different realities in the years of marriage. The parties do not agree on how conflictual the couple’s family life was. Both grew up in Kosovo, have lived in Switzerland for around 30 years, married in 1991 and have four children together, who are now grown. Both are in the nursing profession. Prison sentences and expulsion from the country are being applied for for both of them: Both suspects were also sentenced to fines by the lower court for social security fraud because they kept two properties in Kosovo a secret from the authorities.

Wife refuses to testify

In the questioning of the Chief Justices, the wife refused to make any statement on the matter. Before the lower court, she admitted that she had drugged her husband’s drink, but not to kill him, but “so that I could sleep peacefully at night”. She is serving early sentences in the Hindelbank prison and speaks of current threats from her husband. Once he visited her in Hindelbank. He said he didn’t want to see her alive outside of prison, she claims.

The husband denies ever hitting his wife. He was hit by her, but never by him. Nor did he have to force her to have sex. On the contrary, he was repeatedly forced to do so by her. When he returned to the apartment in April 2018, he trusted his wife. “I thought she wouldn’t go that far.” He drank the drink on ex because he was thirsty, then he got tired and didn’t know anything anymore until he woke up with pain in his neck. He does not know who pulled the cable. “It wasn’t just attempted murder, it was a massacre,” he explains.

Controversial murder qualification

As before, the public prosecutor pleads for attempted murder and a prison sentence of 16 years for the woman for all offenses as well as a 15-year expulsion from the country. The woman insidiously and perfidiously lured the man into a trap. It was not about protection from violence, but about securing family assets. He criticizes the lower court. She had reasoned that there was no murder because, despite the acquittal in dubio pro reo, it could not be ruled out that the woman had been the victim of violence by her husband. According to the public prosecutor, one should not “calculate” their negative feelings with their motives. He is seeking four years in prison for the man for rape.

The wife’s defense attorney wants an acquittal in all major offenses and only a fine for disobeying an official order. In the contingency application, she pleads for attempted manslaughter with a maximum sentence of 4 years. A lot of the evidence is useless. She describes in detail how the wife was said to have been a victim of domestic violence for years and fled to a women’s shelter in 1996 because of a rape.

The latest psychiatric therapy report also states that she was traumatized by years of violence in her marriage. How many pills the woman administered to her husband on April 5, 2018 is completely unclear. That it should have been a high, dangerous dose is pure speculation. She just wanted peace from her husband because she had been raped two days earlier. The woman also claims that the next morning she was attacked by her husband and only used the cable to defend herself in a self-defense situation. The husband’s descriptions may not be reality, but “a nightmare under the influence of medication,” says her lawyer.

The husband’s defense attorney will not plead until Tuesday. The verdict is to be opened on Tuesday evening.