A young Afghan refugee who killed his sister by stabbing her 28 times to protect his family's sense of honour was handed a life sentence by a Vienna court on Wednesday.
The man pleaded guilty and told the court that he had committed the crime "because of culture."
Four days before her death in September last year, the defendant's younger sister had left her family and sought protection in a crisis centre for youths in Vienna.
She feared that her father wanted to fly her back to Afghanistan for an arranged marriage, the court heard.
One month earlier, the girl had fled to a different crisis centre and claimed that her father had hit her, but her family convinced her to come back home.
The sister had said that she was 14 years old, but the coroner established later that she must have been at least 17.
Her brother maintains that he is 19 - an age that would have spared him a life sentence according to Austrian law. Medical experts have come to the conclusion that he is at least 21.
On September 18, the defendant waylaid his sister on her way to school.
He drew a long combat knife, stabbed her "with great force and energy" and continued his assault when his sister was already on the ground, coroner Christian Reiter told the court.
"It was good that she died because she sullied the family honour," the brother testified afterwards, according to police records.
