A former boxing world champion who squared off with Katie Taylor in 2016 wants her ‘unfair’ conviction for killing her husband with a baseball bat thrown out so she can see her son grow up.

Viviane Obenauf was accused of having killed her husband, named only as Thomas F., by hitting him over the head 19 times in Switzerland.

The court determined that the prosecution had made its case, leaving “no doubt” that Obenauf had murdered her husband in a “selfish” and “cold-blooded” act. She was sentenced to 16 years in prison on 9th December last year.

She was also told to pay CHF 114,000 (GBP 99,500) in court costs and pay CHF 6,000 (GBP 5,235) to the victim’s sister.

She has since claimed that she has not seen her 11-year-old son since the verdict and said that her biggest fear is not being able to see him grow up. She said: “I want to hug him and tell him I’m not a bad mummy. I hope he knows that.”

Obenauf told local media from the Grosshof Kriens prison in Lucerne: “The whole thing here is a nightmare.”

She still denies killing her husband, saying: “I loved him. He and my son were the most important people in my life before this horror began.”

She added that the defence’s arguments were not taken seriously and said: “Our defence arguments were not taken seriously enough. I was the perfect perpetrator for them from day one.”

She reportedly claimed that the fact that she was born in Brazil and married someone nearly three decades her senior played against her.

Thomas, the owner of the Des Alpes restaurant in the popular Swiss resort town of Interlaken, was found dead in their Swiss home after having allegedly been beaten to death by his wife with the baseball bat on 19th October 2020.

Obenauf, 36, is a former Brazilian professional boxer who competed from 2014 to 2019. She was born in the city of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, where she played football and was an Olympic gymnast before becoming a boxer at the age of 18.

She took the International Boxing Organization (IBO) female super featherweight title in 2019.

She denied murdering her husband Thomas, who was 61 in late 2020. She was arrested in December 2020 in connection with his death.

Obenauf reportedly said during her trial: “I didn’t kill my husband. I will continue my sport, that’s my passion.”

Obenauf also complained about not being able to see her son enough. She said during the trial: “I’m only allowed to see him once a week for 10 minutes.”

The boxing champion, who was therefore living separately from her new husband at the time of the murder, added that she and Thomas had wanted to have children after getting married following just over a year of dating and that she did not marry him for money, according to local media.

Her lawyer also reportedly claimed that blood spatter found at the scene was a result of an accident when her husband’s motorcycle fell on his legs.

Some of his blood was reportedly found on Obenauf’s shoes as well as her jacket, and according to her lawyer, this could also be due to the alleged accident, said to have taken place the month before the murder, in September 2020.

The boxing champion’s husband was reportedly on blood thinners, due to a heart attack, which increased the bleeding, with the defendant’s lawyer requesting that a witness of the alleged accident be questioned.

But the prosecution did not agree and moved to have the motion dismissed.

On the night of 18th October 2020, the evening of the murder, the defendant claimed that she was at home watching films but the court also heard that she told a friend that she had gone jogging that evening. She claimed that she lied to her friend and actually said that she was going to go jogging but, in the end, decided not to.

Obenauf was also reportedly unable to tell the court any details about the film she said she watched that evening.

An unnamed witness was also questioned on the first day of the trial. They reportedly claimed to have seen Obenauf’s car in Interlaken late in the evening of 18th October, shortly after the murder.

The witness also said that while they recognise the car, they could not see who was in it.

Swiss newspaper Blick said she had once been arrested in London when a man in a nightclub tried to grope her bottom when she was celebrating her 30th birthday and she punched him in the face. The incident meant that she spent several hours in a jail cell in October 2016.

The defendant was jailed for 16 years and after serving her sentence, she will be expelled from Switzerland and barred from returning for 12 years.

The former boxing champion’s lawyer Rouven Brigger, 43, told local media: “We are not at all satisfied with the decision.”

She is now appealing the verdict, with Brigger saying: “We will take it to the Supreme Court.”

But first the current verdict needs to be explained in writing, then the case can go to the Supreme Court. If her guilty verdict is not overturned there, then she will have one final recourse and will be able to appeal the decision in federal court before the verdict is made final.