Police action 'led to immigrant's death'

An African immigrant who died in Austria after police pinned him to the ground died of asphyxiation caused by measures taken to restrain him and not of a weak heart, a court physician said Wednesday.

Cheibani Wague, 33, an immigrant from Mauritania, died in July 003. Initially, authorities said Wague died of a weak heart. But court physician Kurt Hudabiunigg said today that he died of “asphyxiation” caused by measures taken to restrain him.

“The weak heart was a risk factor but not a cause of the death,” Hudabiunigg said.

Hudabiunigg reviewed the death ahead of the resumption of a trial against six police officers, three medics and an emergency physician accused being responsible for the death.

A videotape shows police kneeling and standing on a motionless Wague. An emergency physician called to the scene injected Wague with a sedative.

Wague’s life might have been saved had emergency procedures been carried out, Hudabiunigg said.

Wague had been working at an African exhibition in a Vienna park when two people called police because they felt threatened by him. He had screamed and tossed himself onto the hood of a friend’s car.

In a separate court hearing, the Supreme Administrative Court in Vienna in August found that police were violating laws and human rights when they shackled Wague’s feet and forced him to the ground.

The six officers would have been able to carry the handcuffed Wague to a nearby ambulance without taking those measures, the court said. The ambulance had been called to take Wague to a mental hospital.