The State Administrative Court (LVwG) of Upper Austria has confirmed the imposition of a weapons ban on Prince Ernst August of Hanover. This had been imposed during a police operation after the nobleman had freaked out in Almtal, which also resulted in a criminal conviction.
In July 2020, the police were called to the Prince’s estate in Grünau. In the course of the operation, an immediate weapon ban was imposed on him. The Gmunden district authority later confirmed this. Ernst August lodged an appeal against the decision with the LVwG. It has now been dismissed as unfounded.
The background to this are several incidents from the summer of 2020 in Grünau and Scharnstein: According to the final guilty verdict by the Wels Regional Court, Ernst August had negligently put himself in a state of insanity with alcohol and medication and injured a police officer, an employee and another police officer in this condition – the latter threatened with a baseball bat and smashed a window with a traffic sign. For this he was sentenced to ten months in prison.
When imposing a ban on weapons, the prognosis is crucial as to whether the person concerned could misuse weapons in the future, the LVwG justified its decision. Ernst August did not actually use any weapons, but there were “frequent escalations of violence” and the prince used a knife sharpener, a baseball bat and a traffic sign “as weapons”, among other things. It is therefore to be feared that he would also use weapons within the meaning of the Weapons Act “in order to endanger the life, health or freedom of people or third-party property through their improper use”.
The Prince can now appeal against the decision of the LVwG to the Constitutional Court or an extraordinary appeal to the Administrative Court within six weeks.
