More than a year after a 33-year-old woman froze to death on Austria’s highest mountain, her boyfriend goes on trial on Thursday accused of gross negligent manslaughter.
Kerstin G died of hypothermia on a mountain climbing trip to the Grossglockner that went horribly wrong. Her boyfriend is accused of leaving her unprotected and exhausted close to the summit in stormy conditions in the early hours of 19 January 2025, while he went to get help.
The trial has sparked interest and debate, not just in Austria but in mountain climbing communities far beyond its borders.
Current news cycle seems to be saying he something similar before. Do you still hold your position?
I never said he should be charged for manslaughter just that it seems unreasonable to completely discount it, especially by overemphasising her responsibility over his
I was referring to the news accusing him of “gross negligent manslaughter”.
And yes, I still think that negligence doesn’t make sense here. He wasn’t legally responsible for anyone. He either murdered someone or he committed some sort of fraud.
Honestly, I think it’s just sexist. I remember controversies around Adam Bielecki. He went climbing in the Alps with his friend and came back alone. He claimed they went as partners but some people suspected he was paid to go as a guide. There were no prosecution or anything even though he was way more experienced. The questions was always “was he there as a guide?”. This wasn’t obvious so there was no trial. Then he climbed Broad Peak with a climber that was for the first time in Himalayas. Bielecki went down faster, left the other guy alone and the guy died. And obviously there was no trial. There were some moral questions around it, a lot of hate for Bielecki from the climbing community but no one was even thinking about a trial. The other guy knew where he was going. I think here they are trying to make this guy responsible only because it was his girlfriend. If this happened to a pair of male climbers they would just say the guy is a bad climbing partner and no one should climb with him. But maybe I’m taking this too far…