Arjan A. speaks without a period or comma and so fast that the interpreter sometimes has trouble translating simultaneously. The 25-year-old construction worker has had to answer to the Munich I Regional Court for attempted manslaughter since Monday. “Most of what is said in the indictment is not true,” he said to the presiding judge, Judge Norbert Riedmann, right at the beginning of the hearing.
In the early morning hours of September 5 last year, A. is said to have attacked roommates in a workers’ hostel on Landsberger Strasse in Pasing with two kitchen knives, each with a blade length of around 20 centimeters. One of the men was seriously injured. He suffered, among other things, a two centimeters deep and seven centimeters long laceration on his chest. The public prosecutor assumes that there was at least an “abstract mortal danger” for the victim.
An argument broke out between the alleged victim and four other men around two in the morning. The accused lived with them in a room in the workers’ dormitory. You are summoned as a witness to the trial. Arjan A. does not hope for anything from her interrogation. They will support each other, he tells Judge Riedmann. Some of the witnesses are related to each other or friends, according to the 25-year-old.
“Not specifically” stabbed the alleged victim
Before the argument broke out, A. was said to have been bullied by his five roommates for weeks. The 25-year-old says he simply couldn’t go back to his home country. He had to stay here and earn money. His roommates constantly insulted him. They called him “cleaning bucket”, insulted his mother and advised him to go back to Albania – just before the alleged knife attack. The situation in the room is said to have escalated when one of the men repeatedly asked Arjan A. to get beer from the fridge.
“I should always serve them. I didn’t feel like it anymore,” said the 25-year-old to judge Riedmann. He told the man he was supposed to get a beer for to tell his relative. That didn’t go down well, says Arjan A. One of his roommates immediately grabbed and hit him. He then “escaped” to the kitchen and armed himself with two knives. Arjan A. assures that he stabbed the alleged victim “not specifically”. At best, he “injured the man negligently” and in general: “Everything I did was aimed at defending myself,” asserted the 25-year-old.
After the alleged crime, Arjan A. sat down in the stairwell of the workers’ dormitory and smoked three cigarettes before the police came and arrested him temporarily. The process continues.