As reported by Total Croatia News, in September last year Austrian citizen Harald Kopitz was arrested by Croatian police in Zagreb for the murder of his three children.
Harald and his wife were divorced, and she left her children to spend the weekend with their father while she was on a business trip in Dubrovnik. On the night of September 25, following a worrying Facebook status posted by Kopitz that was later reported by his contacts, Zagreb police entered Harald’s apartment only to find the dead bodies of the children and their father in critical condition after attempting suicide.
Harald Kopitz, an Austrian citizen residing in Zagreb, was arrested by the police for the alleged murder of his three children, which was later confirmed. In the Facebook status he posted, Kopitz wrote something of a farewell letter, noting that his ex-wife thwarted their current love relationship and that his job situation was not improving. In addition, he stressed that he did not receive the necessary support and that he was ”at the end”. The worrying post caught the attention of his contacts, who reported it to the police. You can read the full story here.
As Index.hr reports today, the State Attorney’s Office (DORH) has filed an indictment against Harald Kopitz for the murder of his three children. The Austrian citizen faces up to 50 years in prison.
“Following an investigation, the Zagreb County State’s Attorney’s Office filed an indictment before the Zagreb County Court on 23 February 2022 against a citizen of the Republic of Austria (1965) for three offenses against life and limb and three aggravated murders under Article 111. items 1 and 2 in conjunction with Article 51 of the Criminal Code.
The indictment charges the defendant that on September 24, 2021, at around 10:00 pm, in Zagreb, in the apartment where he was staying with his three minor children (2013, 2013 and 2016), with a premeditated intention to deprive the children of their lives, took advantage of the children’s trust in him as a father and committed the aforementioned criminal offenses to the detriment of the children. In the indictment, the Zagreb County State’s Attorney’s Office requested that the defendant’s pre-trial detention be extended until the end of the criminal proceedings due to the danger of recidivism and particularly serious circumstances of committing this criminal offense (Article 123, paragraph 1, items 3 and 4 of the criminal proceedings)”, announced the DORH.
Let us remind you that Kopitz killed his three children in Zagreb’s Mlinovi at the end of September, and then tried to kill himself. He was sentenced to pre-trial detention because of the danger of repeating the crime, so as not to influence witnesses and because of the particularly difficult circumstances of the crime he is suspected of.
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