Online terror against Oana Krichbaum: the accused has to go to prison for seven months

Pforzheim/Enzkreis. Outbursts of anger by the accused, tears and threats of suicide: In the appeal process for defamation, which Oana Krichbaum - wife of the CDU member of the Bundestag Gunther Krichbaum - met, emotions regularly boiled up. Now the die has been cast: the jury chaired by judge Stefan Bien sentenced a 50-year-old from the Enzkreis district to seven months in prison for defamation in three cases and defamation against people in political life.

According to Bien, one month is already considered to have been executed due to a delay in the proceedings. The subject of the indictment were four posts on Facebook in which the accused allegedly described Oana Krichbaum as a "child trafficker". Three of these posts have now resulted in a conviction.

The 50-year-old repeatedly referred to media reports from which she had information about Oana Krichbaum's alleged involvement in child trafficking. Attorney Hubert Gorka even spoke of the "biggest attack on press freedom since the Spiegel affair" in the event of a conviction. Because: His client only referred to the press releases.

Shot over the target

For Judge Bien, the tables have turned in this regard. "Freedom of expression is essential for the democracy in which we live." But what is decisive is that the accused clearly overshot the mark. For example, Oana Krichbaum is not mentioned in any of the questionable articles that talk about illegal adoptions.

The witness praised by the defendant - an EU official - denounced abuses of adoptions in Romania in the 1990s, but did not connect them with Oana Krichbaum. Also: In one of the posts, the accused accused the politician's wife of serving pedophiles with children. "That's not possible," says Bien loudly, almost horrified.

"I'm done",

says Oana Krichbaum, looking back on the past five years of being terrorized by the convicted felon.

The judge saw “no possibility at all” for a suspended sentence. Countless disciplinary decisions and the "warning shot" - the sentence from the first instance to six months on probation - would not have worked. On the contrary: Even in her final statement, the defendant again pilloried Oana Krichbaum as a child trafficker. The Krichbaum family was probably the target of the 50-year-olds. But also politicians in the district, state, federal government and Europe were bombarded en masse with the unfounded allegations, as Gunther Krichbaum repeatedly and impressively described.

Flood of requests from the lawyer

The process dragged on for eleven days of negotiations. And they were tough in more ways than one: Countless times the accused had to be loudly admonished because of heckling - until the end, when the judge justified the verdict and she had to reject it again with "No, now I'm talking".

While public defender Susanne Burckhardt applied for her release from duty because of the constant terrorization of the accused, attorney Gorka repeatedly made a veritable flood of applications: among other things, to hear a few more witnesses. What took up so much of the attorney's speaking time during the hearing was succinctly described by the judge as saying that the motions were "regarded as meaningless."

With the verdict, the process has come to an end, but not so the burden on the Krichbaum family: "My nerves are at the end," says Oana Krichbaum, looking back on the past five years in which she was terrorized by the convicted criminal.

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