German Flier Rust Receives a 3-Year Sentence for Stabbing : Courts: The 23-year-old who landed in Moscow’s Red Square had attacked a student nurse.
BONN — Mathias Rust, the young German daredevil who once dodged Soviet fighter jets to land his small plane in Moscow’s Red Square, was sentenced Friday to 2 1/2 years in prison for stabbing a student nurse.
Enraged by his mild sentence for attempted manslaughter, spectators booed in the Hamburg courtroom as Rust, 23, smiled.
Prosecutors had recommended at least eight years’ imprisonment for Rust, who contended that “something inside just snapped†when he plunged a switchblade through the stomach of Stefanie Walura, 18, a co-worker who had spurned his advances.
Under German law, both sides have a week to appeal the sentence. Rust remains free on his own recognizance until then.
“The accused is, indeed, a weird man,†said Presiding Judge Juergen Schenck, agreeing that Rust had diminished mental capacity at the time of the attack.
But declared Wolfgang Walura, the victim’s father, “It’s an obscenity, what happened here.
“The judges defended him and made the victim the criminal,†he told Reuters news service. He said his daughter still suffers physically and psychologically from the attack, which Rust’s lawyer conceded would have killed her had it not happened in a hospital. Stefanie Walura, who has filed a separate civil lawsuit against Rust, told the court that the attack has caused her to become claustrophobic.
The three-judge panel concluded that Stefanie Walura must have said or done something to provoke Rust on Nov. 23, 1989. He claimed that he only wanted to ask her for a date. But she testified that she thought Rust intended to kiss her when he put his hands on her shoulders in the locker room of the hospital where both worked. Both agreed that Rust backed away when she screamed.
Rust claimed that she then swore angrily at him and mocked his 1987 Moscow “peace mission†as a publicity stunt. The daring flight from Helsinki, Finland, to the cobblestones of Red Square handed Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev a historic opportunity to clean house of his opponents and set perestroika in motion. Gorbachev fired his chief rival, the defense minister, the day after Rust penetrated Soviet defense systems. Rust served 14 months of a four-year prison term for “malicious hooliganism†in the Soviet Union.
Walura denied taunting Rust, a conscientious objector who was performing civil service in the hospital in lieu of military duty.
Psychiatrists told the court that Rust suffers from “narcissistic neuroses†and a brain abnormality. Rust himself indicated that he had been drugged during his year in Soviet prison. But the defense did not attempt to build a case linking the alleged mistreatment with Rust’s attack on Walura.
“How could we ever prove it?†asked Rust’s attorney, Yitzhak Goldfine.
Goldfine said in an interview Friday that, with good behavior and time already served, Rust could be freed in 18 months. He described the sentence as “not at all bad, under the circumstances.â€
He portrayed Rust as “an absolutely isolated man†who was ill-equipped to deal with either his celebrity or his disgrace. Since the attack, Goldfine said, Rust has been spat on in public and shunned by society.
“I was the hero,†Rust testified. “And then all of a sudden I was the loser.â€
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