Father sentenced after hammer attack on son in Aarau
Published: Thursday, Mar 7th 2024, 21:01
Back to Live Feed
On Thursday, the District Court of Aarau sentenced a 54-year-old father to six years' imprisonment for attempted murder. He had seriously injured his 17-year-old son with a hammer blow in an incident in spring 2023.
The court thus went beyond the demand of the public prosecutor's office, which had requested a prison sentence of five years. It considered it proven that the perpetrator, who was from Eritrea, suddenly hit his son on the back of the head with a hammer, crushing the top of his skull.
His life could only be saved thanks to an emergency operation, it was said. An expert witness spoke of a life-threatening injury. The defendant, on the other hand, claimed that the son had attacked him first and that he had acted in self-defense.
Attack in the family living room
The dispute occurred on Easter evening 2023 in the Aarau region. Father and son were visiting their wife, who lives separately from their father, and their children and half-siblings.
The son testified in court that he was sitting on the sofa in the living room watching football on his smartphone when his father suddenly attacked him from behind with a hammer. This was after they had spent the Easter holidays together.
Father first attacked by son?
The defense lawyer said that his client had first been attacked by his son and that there was no apparent motive for the crime. The 54-year-old should be acquitted and compensated with 200 francs per day for the more than 300 days he has spent in prison so far.
The president of the court said in the grounds for the verdict that the district court considered the son's statements to be more credible than those of the father. Especially because the father had only spoken of self-defense for the first time two months after the crime.
The court also imposed a 12-year ban from the country, as requested by the public prosecutor's office, as the offense is a catalog offense. Although the convicted person had already been in Switzerland since 2015, there was no case of hardship.
©Keystone/SDA
English 
German 
French 
Spanish 
Arabic