Suspected terrorist cell in JA Graz-Karlau: investigations against prisoners – Austria

The 21-year-old is said to have formed a terrorist cell in Graz-Karlau prison with two fellow prisoners, one of whom was jailed for life in 2017 for terrorist offenses.

The investigation by the APA and the news magazine “profil” showed that Lorenz K. came to know Abu H. (30) as a maid in Karlau. The Krems regional court had imposed a life sentence on the native Palestinian for attempted murder and participation in a terrorist organization, namely Hamas. The two men must have gotten along. It is said that they regularly visited each other in their cells. According to the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution and the Fight against Terrorism (BVT), they alternately used two profiles on Instagram and Telegram and thus carried out terrorist propaganda. A third prisoner is said to have been involved in this hustle and bustle.

Besides that. Lorenz K. is said to have instructed the “old man” to make bombs. In early August, during a search in Abu H.’s cell, electronic parts and four cartridges from a long gun were found, with which the latter wanted to build an explosive device, at least according to suspicion. Apparently, even for convicted terrorists, it is no longer a problem to get hold of the necessary utensils in prison.

Even mobile phones, officially banned, of course, are no longer in short supply in prisons. According to “profil” (Saturday edition), last year 1,079 devices were confiscated in national prisons, 720 more than the previous year. IS supporter Lorenz K., sentenced to nine years in prison in April 2018 in Vienna by a jury for his involvement in an assassination attempt in two cases, each committed as a terrorist offense, already had a smartphone in Fall 2019 at JA Stein. .

He allegedly shared this with Sergo P., another terrorism suspect who is also said to belong to the radical Islamist “Islamic State” (IS) and who likely planned a series of attacks in December 2019, including the Stephansplatz Christmas market in Vienna. . In Stein, Lorenz K. communicated via Instagram, among other things, with people who had joined the Islamic State and gone to Syria. In addition to ISIS execution videos and other propaganda material, he also posted a photo of his cell, with an ISIS flag in the background, which he allegedly obtained from a fellow prisoner. The 21-year-old is also said to have issued an oath of allegiance to the successor to IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who died in the fall of 2019.

According to BVT, Lorenz K. wanted to instigate one of his chat partners, a man allegedly living in Germany, into an explosive attack in Germany or Austria, saying that he could “show him how to do it”, giving him instructions on how to make a device. explosive. should have offered. He also recommended to the man: “You can covertly attack the kuffar (infidels, note).” According to BVT, Lorenz K. wanted to encourage an 18-year-old to commit a terrorist attack by sending him, among other things, a photo of a nail bomb.

Lorenz K. is in prison because at the end of November 2016 he wanted to convince a twelve-year-old German boy to commit a suicide attack in a Christmas market in Ludwigshafen (Rhineland-Palatinate) on behalf of ISIS using a self-made explosive device . Furthermore, he had planned at the same time to carry out a bomb attack on a woman who was two years his junior after he had married her under Islamic law. The attack did not occur because the girl’s father searched his cell phone, discovered his daughter’s talks with the Viennese, which were saturated with terrorist ideas, and immediately called the police.

At the end of 2019, Lorenz K. moved from JA Stein. At JA Graz-Karlau, he again had a cell phone from February, which he said he received from his cellmates. Consequently, he received the device in a loaf of bread prepared in his cell against a transfer of 800 euros, which was made by a contact person outside the prison walls. Using his smartphone, Lorenz K. is said to have been in daily contact with the outside world for months.

After the activities at JA Graz-Karlau are exposed, the suspects are being investigated for attempted murder and attempted intentional exposure to explosives, each committed as a terrorist offense (article 278c StGB). The Graz prosecutor’s office continues to keep a low profile. For Wolfgang Blaschitz, the defender of Lorenz K., the suspicion is “pulled by the hair,” as he told the APA. Blaschitz announced an objection for violation of the law because, as the 21-year-old’s legal advisor, he had not yet had access to the files.