A woman has been jailed for six years in Switzerland after shooting her lover dead while they had sex.
The 40-year-old claimed she pulled the trigger after he began to smother her, insisting she acted in self defense.
Judges accepted that she had been attacked and was defending herself, but ruled her response was disproportionate and went beyond what was necessary.
The woman was therefore found guilty of intentional homicide at Rheintal District Court on Thursday.
The court said there had been ‘alternatives’ to using lethal force, meaning her actions amounted to an excess of self-defence.
The woman told the court the sex had initially been ‘completely normal’, but claimed the man twice covered her mouth and nose during intercourse.
‘I grabbed the pistol because he was choking me. I couldn’t breathe at all. I was afraid I was going to die,’ she said.
In early September 2023, the woman, from Hungary, met the victim, an Austrian man, at a table dance bar in Austria’s Vorarlberg region, where she worked as a dancer.
The pair quickly struck up a relationship, exchanging numbers and speaking daily before arranging to meet at his home in Diepoldsau, eastern Switzerland, later that month.
A woman has been jailed for six years in Switzerland after shooting her lover dead while they had sex. Pictured: Where the crime occurred
She arrived at around 8.30pm, with prosecutors saying the pair spent the next two hours drinking heavily, talking and having consensual sex, moving between the bed and sofa.
At around 10pm, the man was lying on his back on the sofa with the woman on top of him when a loaded Glock pistol, kept unsecured on a nearby table, came within her reach.
She picked up the weapon shortly afterwards and fired a single shot into the left side of his head.
The victim suffered catastrophic brain injuries and went into respiratory failure.
The woman immediately tried to raise the alarm, searching online for the Swiss emergency number before calling a taxi driver and urging him to contact police.
‘Lots of blood, call the police quickly,’ she told him.
She later managed to dial emergency services herself, but despite efforts by first responders, the man died at the scene around half an hour after the shooting.
Prosecutors rejected her account that she had no choice but to fire, arguing she had several alternatives and did not need to use lethal force.
They said she could have resisted, struck him, or fired a warning shot instead.
Her defence team argued she acted out of panic and fear for her life.
The convicted woman must pay the mother of the victim 20,000 Swiss francs in compensation.
