“I still wonder why they build refugee homes. If Mauthausen is not empty anyway, they also have showers there ”: A 35-year-old man from Eisenstadt published this text in June 2020 on his publicly accessible Facebook profile.
On Tuesday of this week, the man with seven previous convictions had to answer for this and another posting before a jury. He is accused of being re-engaged in National Socialism and incitement to hatred.
The second questionable post disparaged people of non-white skin color.
“Mauthausen is by no means empty, it is a memorial that every person in Austria should have visited once,” said prosecutor Roland Koch.
The defendant’s posting was a “National Socialist code”, according to the prosecutor.
Not sane due to drug addiction?
The defendant pleaded guilty to the fact that he had made the reprehensible content publicly available on his Facebook profile. However, he was not sane.
Although he was ordered to start therapy and stay away from drugs when he was last convicted in November 2019, he was said to have consumed “spice”, heroin and marijuana.
Actually, the addict should have served a two-year prison sentence for his crimes. However, this was postponed according to the principle of “therapy instead of punishment”.
Because of the pandemic, it took until February 2021 for the 35-year-old to begin inpatient withdrawal.
“At that moment I thought it was funny,” explained the defendant, why he shared the Mauthausen post. Today it is clear to him that it is “total nonsense”. “I have no problem with foreigners,” asserted the defendant, who has been unemployed since 2013, lives on welfare and spends the day playing computer games. “Everything that was left financially was turned into drugs,” admitted the 35-year-old. He and a friend brought the synthetic cannabinoid Spice mixed with herbs from Hungary and bought heroin in Vienna.
After completing inpatient therapy, the man is now on the substitution program and is receiving methadone.
The trial was adjourned to seek an expert opinion to determine whether the defendant was sane when he published the postings.
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