Last night, the British mother who murdered her son using a candlestick and brutally killed him won justice.
Alex Morgan, 23 years of age, died when Bennet Von Vertes, a drug-fueled criminal, took his friend on a rampage. The night ended in depraved violence.
Originally jailed for 12 years, Vertes’s conviction was downgraded to ‘negligent killing’ and his sentence cut to three years, sparking a marathon legal battle by Mr Morgan’s mother, Katja Faber, a former barrister and BBC journalist.
After a Swiss appeal judge reinstated the original punishment and convicted a London woman for rape in another case, the judges made the final decision last night.
Miss Faber told the Daily Mail: ‘Vertes is a killer and rapist.
Katja Faber (pictured), a former barrister and BBC journalist, has won her legal battle to see her son’s murderer spend 12 years behind bars, after his sentence was downgraded to ‘negligent killing’ and his sentence cut to three years. Pictured: Katja Faber and her son, Alex Morgan, who died aged 23
“I was delighted to see justice finally being done. I am hugely relieved that he has got to go back to prison.’
Her son, a former pupil at Prince Charles’s school, Gordonstoun, was a ‘witty, funny and bright’ young man, she said.
Vertes was the son of an Hungarian-German art dealer and aristocrat. However, his addiction to drugs led him down a spiral of violence.
He met Mr Morgan while studying at Regent’s College in London.
‘Nothing comes close to child loss for any parent,’ said Miss Faber, who now lives in Spain.
‘In Alex’s case the brutality in which he was killed is another thing altogether.
‘Every day, as a parent, you have to say, “I will get up and I will survive”.
‘I have had to fight to get justice. I was a barrister by chance and know that people who have more money are able to get better deals.
‘Most families of homicide victims do not have the energy to take this up.
“It may have helped me to deal with the grief, even though I was a barrister.”
‘It has been horrendous to sit in court day after day.’
Mister Morgan flew from the United States to celebrate New Year 2014 with his family, on a ski holiday.
Bennet von Vertes, the son an Hungarian-German art dealer and aristocratic Hungarian, hit Mr Morgan with a broken glass table before hitting him with two shards of glass. Vertes then hit him with a candlestick measuring 3ft. It was a drug-fueled attack in which Vertes claimed he thought his victim was an alien.
When he arrived in Zurich, he stayed with Vertes after losing the keys to his mother’s flat.
Following a drug-fuelled game of chess, the pair took a taxi to Vertes’ parents’ villa in Kusnacht.
Vertes, a powerful 6ft 5in kickboxer was thrown against Mr Morgan by a glass table that shattered.
Briton was struck with a 3ft candlestick after being stabbed in the back.
During a hearing in Zurich, Vertes told judges: ‘I am sorry but I don’t have any reasonable memories of the crime.’
As for the rape, Vertes said: ‘I’ve never hurt a woman’s hair.’