A 51-year-old man suspected of pushing a woman from an underground train platform in Vienna has not been charged.
The incident occurred on the underground line U2 at the station Taborstrasse at 11.40pm on Saturday.
The victim, a 36-year-old woman from Kenya, had reportedly taken a telephone call whilst waiting for the train with a friend.
It is believed that the 51-year-old man in question confronted the woman because her conversation, in his opinion, was too loud.
The verbal attack escalated quickly and the man is said to have punched the woman in the head and pushed her down onto the rails at the U2 station.
Exact details of the confrontation have not been revealed but it has been speculated that the attack was racially motivated.
The woman received serious injuries in the fall and was unable to pull herself back up onto the platform. She received help from witnesses who climbed down onto the tracks just seconds before the train was due to pull into the station.
Austrian newspaper “Österreich” said on Thursday (10 January) that following the incident the suspect was detained by police for no more than 8 hours. Shortly after, the Public Prosecutors Office dropped the attempted murder charge and the man will instead be investigated for intentional aggravated assault. The Public Prosecutors Office have yet to make a formal statement.
The 51-year-old claims that he did not intend for the woman to fall from the platform. He said that both of the Kenyan women had spoken loudly than was acceptable and he had asked them to speak more quietly.
According to him, the women then began to curse him before attacking him. He claims that their attack took him by surprise and the punch he delivered was to keep the women at a distance. He said that the 36-year-old woman had then stumbled and fallen from the platform.
Source:Austrian Times
