[ad_1]
reThe killer, who was shot by the police after the attack in central Vienna, was 20 years old, had roots in northern Macedonia and had a relevant criminal record for belonging to a terrorist organization. Austrian Interior Minister Karl Nehammer (ÖVP) announced this to the APA news agency on Tuesday. According to Nehammer, the killer had both Austrian and North Macedonian citizenship.
“He was equipped with a fake explosives belt and an automatic long pistol, a pistol and a machete to carry out this gruesome attack on innocent citizens,” said the interior minister. He is a supporter of IS and also wanted to travel to Syria to join him. For this reason, the young man was sentenced to 22 months in prison in April 2019. In early December, he was released early. As Nehammer explained, there were extensive raids around the perpetrator. Several people were arrested.
Austria honors the victims of the terrorist act on Monday night with three days of national mourning. The Special Council of Ministers decided on Tuesday in Vienna. “Our thoughts and our condolences go out to the victims, the injured and their families in these particularly difficult hours for the Republic of Austria,” Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz (ÖVP) said in front of the cabinet. The state duel applies until Thursday inclusive. The events have deeply shocked and affected the country. The attack was a “heinous act” and “an attack on the freedom and democracy of the Republic of Austria,” Kurz said. On Tuesday, the first day of national mourning, a “minute of silent remembrance” should be observed at 12 noon. Schools are required to observe a minute of silence at the beginning of Wednesday lessons.
At a press conference, Kurz said: “We will never forget the victims of last night.” Austria had become “the target of a brutal terrorist attack”. It is not a dispute between Christians and Muslims or between Austrians and migrants. It is a struggle between civilization and barbarism. “And we will fight this fight with all determination.”
Media: the perpetrator was known to the secret service
The media had previously reported that the Austrian secret service knew the man because he was one of 90 Austrian Islamists who wanted to travel to Syria, wrote Florian Klenk, editor-in-chief of the Vienna weekly “Falter”, on Twitter. The suspect’s parents are from North Macedonia and go unnoticed on Islamism. Police did not trust that he had planned a terrorist attack in Vienna, Klenk wrote.
The killer killed four people in the city center on Monday night. The shooter, perhaps there were several, fired randomly at passersby and guests in restaurants. Two women and two men died. Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said the dead were an older man and an older woman, a young passerby and a waitress. 14 people were injured, six of them seriously, are being treated in hospitals in Vienna. A 28-year-old policeman was one of the seriously injured. He was on patrol downtown when he came across the shooter and he shot him.
