Criminal court sends thug to prison for three and a half years

Driven by his lust for revenge, Adnan L.* beat up his arch-enemy in the middle of the day. Now, a year and a half later, the Zug criminal court has convicted him – again: L. had been released from prison only a few weeks before the renewed attack.

Luck and bad luck seem to echo themselves. In the case of Adnan L.*, that was over a period of 42 months; that's how long the Zug criminal court is sending him to prison for attempted serious bodily harm and as a total sentence with two other incidents from 2020. This can be seen in a judgment that has recently been published publicly.

L.* could hardly believe his luck when he met his greatest adversary in Zug on a Sunday in February 2021:  on the open road, in broad daylight. Adnan L. had been released from prison only six weeks earlier. The then 29-year-old was certain: the man staring at him from the other side of the street was to blame for his incarceration. And he was completely alone.

Adnan L. didn’t want any witnesses
L. wanted to settle the outstanding bill, to hurt the other man "so badly that he would suffer from it all his life," writes the Zug Public Prosecutor's Office in its indictment. According to the prosecution, L. crossed the street and told his adversary to come with him, because he didn’t want any witnesses for what he intended to do.

The Zug Criminal Court (left in the picture) has sentenced L. to 42 months in prison                             Photo Stefan Kaiser

But his adversary refused, causing Adnan L. to freak out and slap him in the face. The opponent’s glasses flew off at the first blow, while the next blow knocked him to the ground. L. continued to hit out, more and more; only stopping when he was startled by honking cars and approaching passers-by. L ran away, and escaped in the direction of Cham. Two days later, he was arrested and remanded in custody.

On that Sunday in February, he had left his victim on the street, with his nose broken in several times and a four-centimetre-long wound where the glasses had been. "It was pure luck that the frame didn’t break when the glasses were hit, or that a glass could broken (...) and seriously and incurably injured an eye (...)," writes the Public Prosecutor's Office.

The climax of an enmity
The wound and left eyelid had to be sutured, and the victim also suffered a concussion, which still bothers him weeks after the attack.

The attack of February 2021 was the culmination of a deep enmity between the two that has existed from November 2018. The narrative thread couldn't be more clichéd as the clash of excessive and unhealthy masculinity: oblique looks, insulting text messages, statements about mating with the opponent's mother, a brawl, calling in the police, another brawl, again the police, an indictment, a guilty verdict, prison. And is that the end?

In April 2020, the Zug Criminal Court sentenced Adnan L. to 14 months in prison, but he was released on parole at Christmas. And he was "still thinking of revenge"," as the indictment says. Adnan L. got his satisfaction on this Sunday in February, but he will now pays for it dearly. In court, the Public Prosecutor's Office demanded 30 months in prison and inpatient therapy in a closed institution.

L.'s defence attorney, on the other hand, tried to gain as much as possible for his client – and asked for a full acquittal as the first priority. If that was not possible, he requested two months in prison for simple bodily injury through negligence. And if the court were to assume intent, he asked for 15 months imprisonment for simple bodily injury.

Court waived inpatient therapy, and the parties filed an appeal
In the proceedings, L. had testified that he had only slapped his opponent in the face, and the latter had only become injured in the face because he fell during the scuffle. The court did not believe this: the judgment stated that the accused’s statements were contradictory and implausible. In addition, the court relied on the medical examinations and the statements of three witnesses who had observed the brawl.

With 42 months in prison, the three-member court went further in its sentencing than the 30 months requested by the Public Prosecutor's Office. The court did not impose inpatient therapy, however, but outpatient therapy instead. The judgment stated: "It is particularly incomprehensible to the court whether or to what extent an inpatient measure against the will of the accused (...) would be more promising than an outpatient measure accompanying enforcement."

The last word has not been spoken with the current ruling, however, as the verdict satisfied neither the prosecution nor the defence, and both have filed an appeal.

* Name changed by the editor