Et is a chilling accusation that the prosecutor is making. A sentence appears several times: “The defendant wanted to cause the embryo to die.” He punched his pregnant wife in the face and kicked her in the stomach when she was lying unconscious on the kitchen floor. “He refused the child.” Later, when the woman was in the hospital and had received an ultrasound picture from her gynecologist, instead of giving in to the picture, he put his knee on her abdomen and pressed it firmly into the uterus. “If you had listened to me, you would have been better,” he said, holding the arms of the struggling woman.
The child was finally born healthy. But now, a good five years later, the parents are facing each other in the district court. The family proceedings have been completed, custody is shared, the child is with the father every other weekend – without staying overnight. But the criminal proceedings against him are only just beginning. Actually, everything should be negotiated to the end in one day. But it quickly becomes clear that nothing will come of it. Did the father really try to provoke a miscarriage? After the birth, as the indictment says, did he maltreat the mother with beatings, strangles and slaps in the face, once hit the child as well, until the woman finally fled to a women’s shelter after a good four years of marriage?
Abortion as something reprehensible
No, says the 28-year-old bank clerk: “That doesn’t come close to my moral standards.” There were frequent and intense disputes, mostly about the families of the two. But the aggression came from his wife. She attacked him and suddenly jumped on him. He pushed her away and she fell unhappily. And the thing with the knee in the groin? “That’s crazy.” Yes, the unplanned pregnancy was difficult for him. He was young, the training was imminent and he had to deal with the responsibility first. But abort? No, even in ethics class at school he was of the opinion that abortion was something reprehensible. “Anyone who wants to have sexual intercourse must also deal with the consequences.” The beatings, the slaps, the choking, the violence against the child: everything was invented or fabricated by his wife in order to win the family case.
When the woman is questioned by the court, she presents the marriage in exactly the opposite way. She was happy until she became pregnant. Then increasing violence and humiliation would have determined their everyday life. Her husband applied for the small gun license and threatened what he would do to her if she left. “He said he was allowed to do that because he was my husband.” After the birth he made her feel “that I am dependent and that I am under him. I was controlled and monitored.”
Nevertheless, she had hope, got used to life in fear and submitted. In the last year of their marriage, he took her cellphones away and sat next to her when she called, and he also wrote messages on her behalf. The presiding judge wants to know why she didn’t tell anyone. “For us Moroccans, it’s a shame when a woman wants to separate.”
On the next day of the hearing, additional witnesses are to appear and further evidence is to be introduced.
