In October, the tribunal dealt with four cases against the accused.
One of the cases centred on threats directed at Tom Hecker, the president of the LGBTQIA+ advocacy group Rosa Lëtzebuerg, also known as Tatta Tom (“Aunty Tom”), a drag queen.
Upon request, Hecker visits schools and nurseries to read stories and provide information on sexuality and sexual orientation.
The accused, in an email to Hecker, threatened physical harm, stating that if Hecker “passed on his illness” to the accused’s daughter, he would “punch the dirt out of his stomach.”
The defendant attempted to justify his actions by saying “I didn’t want anyone to tell my daughter that you can be anything you want to be.” He claimed that while he is teaching his five-year-old daughter to be tolerant, there would be “limits.”
In another case, the defendant faced prosecution for sharing a video with anti-Semitic content on social media in late 2022. He told the court that he had never watched the video.
Both the judge and the representative of the public prosecutor’s office stressed that this did not protect him from being prosecuted, pointing out that people can be held accountable for the content they share.
In the third case, the defendant, under the influence of alcohol in early 2023, directed insults at police officers, resulting in his confinement to a holding cell and subsequent hospital examination.
Among other things, he called an officer an “idiot,” which was among the tamer insults he directed at the officers. He also threatened the police officers’ families and wished them dead.
The six police officers filed charges as a civil party and demanded €350 in damages each. Five applications were dismissed, with one police officer awarded damages of €250.
The fourth case involved a social media post in which, a few days after an argument with the police, the defendant posted a video containing insults directed at law enforcement, among other things.
This was not the first time the man was arrested: He was previously handed a suspended prison sentence of a year for insulting former Prime Minister Xavier Bettel and one for belittling the Holocaust. During the pandemic, he had hinted that non-vaccinated people would be treated like Jews in World War II.
The man now has 40 days to appeal.
