Woman who cut off her own hand found guilty of fraud

A Slovenian woman was found guilty of deliberately cutting her hand as part of an insurance scam.

A court in the capital, Ljubljana, ruled that 22-year-old Julija Adlesic had taken out five insurance policies in the year before her injury. She had claimed it happened while cutting branches.

Adlesic could earn more than € 1 million (£ 900,000, $ 1.16 million) in payments.

Now she faces two years in prison, while her boyfriend has been sentenced to three years.

Adlesic and several family members were arrested in 2019 after she arrived at the hospital with her hand severed above the wrist.

The court found that she and her boyfriend had intentionally left the severed hand behind instead of bringing it with them to ensure the disability was permanent. However, the authorities recovered it in time to re-sew it.

Prosecutors said the woman’s boyfriend had also conducted Internet searches for artificial hands in the previous days.

Prosecutors said this was proof that the injury was intentional.

The father of Adlesic’s boyfriend also received a one-year suspended sentence.

During the trial, Adlesic had denied intentionally cutting off his hand.

If the fraudulent claim had been successful, the couple would have received more than half a million euros in lump sum and the rest paid in monthly installments.