An Austrian court sentenced Thursday evening to 20 years in prison a woman who had brought her 12-year-old son to the brink of death by locking him in a dog transport crate.
In this case which shocked the Alpine country, the 33-year-old accused was found guilty of attempted murder, torture of a minor and kidnapping, after seven hours of deliberations.
His 40-year-old accomplice, who called for help, was sentenced to 14 years in prison for having encouraged the “continued use of violence” against the child through chat messages and telephone calls.
The courts ordered their placement in a medico-legal therapy center, the psychiatric expertise attesting to “serious and lasting psychological disorders”, without the “capacity of discernment being abolished”.
The child, now aged 13, was “completely destroyed”, estimated the president of the Assize Court.
During the debates, the main accused claimed that she simply wanted to “discipline” her son and said she was “terribly sorry for what happened”, according to comments reported by the APA agency.
On November 22, 2022, the boy in a coma, suffering from hypothermia, was taken to the hospital. The unemployed single mother was arrested the next day and then placed in detention in Krems, west of Vienna.
For several months, she had doused the child with cold water while opening the apartment’s windows despite subzero temperatures outside, causing his body temperature to drop to 26.8 degrees Celsius. Saved at the last minute, he weighed only 40 kilos.
She also beat him, deprived him of food, tied him up and locked him in a small dog carrier, an event that sparked public outrage.
Videos taken by the accused showing the child unable to move and speak were played during the hearing.
The defense pointed to possible failures on the part of the authorities when the school had issued insistent reports.
A few weeks before his hospitalization, the boy had also run away, asking a family to take him in. The police took him home, according to the Austrian daily Der Standard.