Thu. Nov 21st, 2024

Vienna attack: Austria police detain 14, reveal new details on ‘lone gunman’

Fejzulai, a dual Austrian and Macedonian national, was convicted of a terror offence in April last year for trying to travel to Syria.

By AFP
Austrian police have arrested 14 people in raids linked to Monday’s deadly attack in Vienna and have found no evidence that a second shooter was involved, Interior Minister Karl Nehammer said Tuesday.

“There have been 18 raids in Vienna and Lower Austria and 14 people have been detained,” Nehammer told a televised press conference.

The minister added that police believe that the attack in central Vienna was carried out by a lone gunman, Kujtim Fejzulai, a 20-year-old ISIS sympathizer who was killed by police on Monday night.

The video material evaluated by the police “does not at this time show any evidence of a second attacker,” Nehammer said.

Fejzulai, a dual Austrian and Macedonian national, was convicted of a terror offence in April last year for trying to travel to Syria.

He was sentenced to 22 months in prison, but was freed on parole in December.

Nehammer said he had been on a de-radicalization program and had managed to secure an early release.

“The perpetrator managed to fool the de-radicalization program of the justice system, to fool the people in it, and to get an early release through this,” the minister said.

Asked whether the program had failed, Nehammer said there was a “fracture” in the system.

While he said he did not want to “point fingers… we must look very closely at what can be improved.”

 

 

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