Financial Procurator’s Office declined
According to the “Kurier” a newspaper in austria, the vienna administrative court has now also determined that the extent of the police deployment was not justified. However, the operator’s claim for damages has been rejected by the Austrian Financial Procurator’s Office for the time being. Now the case is going to the court. A few days ago, a lawsuit was filed against the Republic of Austria, as the hemp grower confirmed on thursday.
Many police students there
Specifically, more than 200,000 euros are at stake – that’s how much damage is said to have been caused by the police operation, to which many police students were also assigned in the summer of 2020. For the company, which has received funding from the EU and the City of Vienna, this is an existential loss, says the operator.
The original police operation at the time took place at another address in the area. In the course of the follow-up inspection, the police officers came across an open door from which the smell of cannabis was emanating.
No court permission
Reinforcements were then requested and, due to imminent danger, action was taken without judicial authorization. This assumption that action had to be taken quickly is also supported by the State Financial Procurator’s Office, which cannot recognize any “unlawful and culpable conduct on the part of federal bodies”.
The Administrative Court concludes that the destruction of exactly 1,792 plants, which took about 40 officials several hours, was not necessary. There had never been any danger of the evidence being destroyed because so many plants could not simply have been smuggled out of a hall with only two doors without being noticed. It would have been sufficient to confine oneself to the 120 plants that had been taken for sampling.
