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An Aargau arms dealer puts gangsters to flight. Now the public prosecutor is demanding three years in prison for the gunsmith because of multiple attempted murders.
On the night of October 30, 2020, there was a firefight with assault rifles in Wallbach. Six heavily armed criminals from France try to break into a gun shop. Hundreds of police weapons are stored in Jean-Paul Schild’s shop that night – the complete equipment for a Swiss police corps.
But the owner of the gun shop in Wallbach has been warned: He knows that other shops have already been looted in the past few weeks. When he wakes up and sees that heavily armed men are trying to force his way into his house, he runs to the gun cabinet and gets an assault rifle and a magazine.
warning shot fired
“I opened the window and screamed.” The gangsters would have continued unmoved. Then he saw that someone had almost climbed up to him. He made a loading movement, but that didn’t deter the perpetrators either. “So I fired a warning shot into the wall,” the gunsmith told the “Rundschau”.
Legend:
SRF
The bullet injures the climbed gangster’s arm. His colleagues shoot back from all guns. Seven bullets penetrate the bedroom, 17 hit the facade. Schild shoots too: four, five shots into the engine block of one of the cars. Then the attackers fled: full throttle towards France. In 2021, the gang will be arrested in France.
Chase away or meet?
But for Jean-Paul Schild the nightmare is not over. The public prosecutor’s office in Aargau also opened criminal proceedings against him. The public prosecutor accuses the gunsmith of arming himself before the attack. That was attempted multiple premeditated homicide. Criminal complaint: three months in prison, six months of which are unconditional.
“It’s very distressing. You think about it every night before you go to bed,” says Schild. The 60-year-old says he only wanted to chase away the attackers, but didn’t want to hit them.
Prosecutors say they are not allowed to comment before the trial. The investigation files are not public, but all essential elements must be in the indictment. The “Rundschau” has asked five criminal law experts for an assessment of the indictment. A professor evaluates the procedure of the public prosecutor’s office as correct: A court must decide whether it is an attempt to kill or self-defense.
But most experts see it like the former chief public prosecutor of Zurich Andreas Brunner. He says: “It is incomprehensible to me. This is – as it is described in the indictment – a textbook example of justified self-defense.” He would have dropped the case.
The date for the trial of Jean-Paul Schild has not yet been set.
More on the topic in the «Rundschau” at 8:05 p.m. on SRF 1.