[ad_1]
IAt the Wels in Upper Austria, Ernst August Prince of Hannover was tried on Tuesday. From what the judge declared from the beginning that he would address him as “Herr Hannover”: Austrian citizens have been prohibited from possessing titles of nobility since 1919. The prosecution charged the defendant with wounding a policeman in the Gmunden area in the summer of 2020 and threatening a policewoman and two employees on other occasions. Whether this had happened in a state of insanity caused by himself through negligence was one of the questions that needed to be clarified.
Ernst August expressed regret and willingness to pay damages in Wels district court, but described himself as not guilty in the sense of the prosecution. His lawyers complained that their client had been subjected to massive prejudice in the media.
Three years without the Almtal
The Wels court eventually sentenced Ernst August to a 10-month suspended sentence on Tuesday. It was considered proven that the 67-year-old drunken man assaulted policemen, among other things, and severely threatened a couple of managers who worked on his property. Therefore, the judge also issued the instruction that Ernst August would not be allowed to live in his previous place of residence in the Almtal of Upper Austria for at least the next three years.
“Impossible”, “unthinkable”, Ernst August reacted in horror at this part of the trial. He has lived there for 50 years. The judgment is not final. The defense and the Public Ministry did not initially make any statements.
The incidents had received extensive media coverage beforehand, especially in view of the position and past of the head of the Welf family. He has already suspected violence on several occasions and was sentenced to a large fine in 2010.
Ernst August: “I would like to apologize”
On the night of July 15, 2020, there was a police operation in a hunting lodge in Grünau that belongs to a family foundation and where he is said to be regularly found. According to the accusation, he resisted, insulted the agents, threatened them with “the execution of his relatives” and wounded one of them. The police stole a sharpener from him, handcuffed him and took him to the psychiatric ward of the Vöcklabruck hospital.
Ernst August, for his part, complained with a lawsuit for the use and for a provisional ban on weapons that was ruled against him. Five days later, he is said to have threatened a policewoman in the vicinity of Scharnstein with violence: according to the prosecutor, he “hit her on the head” with a baseball bat from the taxi and “hit her in the face.” “It is said that on the night of September 7, he broke a window near the hunting lodge and threatened the employees who lived in this house. Ernst August was arrested again and released two days later.
The 67-year-old German, Austrian and British citizen said only this in court: “I would like to apologize for everything to those involved, I am sorry for what happened and I am willing to pay the damages. From my point of view, that says it all. “
Defense attorneys noted in advance that their client was in an “exceptional situation” last summer because he was “isolated for years and betrayed by his own son.” The lawyers explained his behavior by saying that his dentist had given him strong painkillers. They also questioned the accuracy of the blood and urine samples taken at the time. One of the defenders is Malte Berlin. He is also the managing director of a debt collection company that, as reported by the FAZ, is involved in a civil lawsuit by Ernst August for property issues against his son, Crown Prince Ernst August.
