Unhappy divorcee shoots court official

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A drunk man unhappy with a judge's ruling in his divorce case returned to the courthouse and fatally shot one of its employees.

The 57-year-old was arrested after gunning down the 42-year-old mother of two young children at the district courthouse in Hollabrunn, a town about 50km northwest of Vienna, Austria's capital, said Leopold Etz of the Lower Austrian criminal police force.

Wilhelm Tschugguel, an official who oversees the Hollabrunn court, said that the alleged killer was unhappy with the outcome of his divorce proceedings and had entered the court in Hollabrunn to find the judge who had handled the case.

Tschugguel said the man started screaming when he couldn't find the judge and shot the victim when she tried to calm him down.

The gunman had repeatedly complained about his divorce case, and on Tuesday had called the Justice Ministry to complain about it but "at no point in time were there any indications of a threat," Tschugguel said.

Franz Polzer, head of the Lower Austrian Bureau of Criminal Affairs, said the man was drunk at the time of the shooting and admitted to police that he wanted to kill the judge.

He shot the victim in the head and then fled, losing his pistol on the way out, Polzer said. Police arrested him when he returned to the courthouse several minutes later.

- AP