A FATHER accused of drowning his severely disabled six-year-old son and then pretending he had been killed by burglars has gone on trial.
Prosecutors say cold-blooded Florian Apler, 39, threw defenseless Leon into a river in Sankt Johann, Austria, and then called police claiming he had been robbed and his son was missing.
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Police later found Leon’s body in the Kitzbuheler Ache River on August 29 and were immediately suspicious of his father’s story.
Apler denied murdering his son when the trial began on July 17 at the Innsbruck Regional Court, local media reported.
He claims he fell unconscious while walking along the river with his son in a stroller, and when he woke up, the boy was gone.
Apler told police that her son must have fallen or been thrown into the water by his attackers.
Florian and his wife even offered a reward of 30,000 euros (about 25,000 pounds) for the capture of the attacker he claimed to have injured, according to the Austrian newspaper. Express.
But prosecutors say that when police began investigating the case, they discovered that Apler had already researched online how people behave when they are knocked out.
Six months after the horrific incident in 2022, police refuted Apler’s claims and arrested him for allegedly faking his robbery.
Austrian police said in a statement: “According to the conclusions of the State Criminal Police to date, it is suspected that the alleged robbery did not take place and that the father himself is responsible for the boy’s death.”
His head injuries, they say, were caused when he hit his head with a bottle and they have detailed a series of holes in his story.
The Expresspress also reported that a bottle of Prosecco was the alleged murder weapon.
They said: “He was found near the river, not far from the crime scene.
“Footage from a surveillance camera suggested that he himself was carrying the bottle in the shopping bag on his trolley.”
They believe Apler killed his son because he could no longer cope with the agony caused by the boy’s rare genetic condition, SYNGAP1 syndrome.
Sufferers have severe learning difficulties, seizures, extreme emotional outbursts and insomnia.
But Apler’s defense lawyer, Mathias Kapferer, says there is no real evidence against him and says his wife supports him.
He said: “In this case, we are talking about circumstantial evidence and the like.”
The father denied all allegations and stuck to his original story – that he was in fact attacked to the point of being knocked out.
He was placed as the prime murder suspect following the fatal event that saw his son drown after falling into a stream.
“Based on the results of the investigation to date, the Public Prosecutor’s Office assumes that there is an urgent suspicion of homicide and an alleged crime,” the authorities added.
We previously reported that the six-year-old was left wandering by the river in St. Johann in Tirol, Austria.
Apler claimed he was pushing Leon in his stroller at 4 a.m. when an unidentified assailant hit him in the head with a bottle.
He told police he fell unconscious to the ground and claimed Leon got out of the buggy and wandered around, disoriented.
The horrific incident was discovered by a passerby, who found the father at around 5:20am.
Police were told that Leon walked towards the nearby Kitzbueheler Ache River and drowned, and an autopsy confirmed the cause of death.
A verdict is expected on August 1, local media reports.
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