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A week after the terrorist attack with four innocent victims and an Islamist attacker who was shot dead, the controversy between the ÖVP and the FPÖ about the status of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution and the Fight against Terrorism (BVT) intensifies. The Parliamentary Club of the Greens, a coalition partner of the ÖVP, is now asking Home Minister Karl Nehammer (ÖVP) to take note of any mistakes in the run-up to the planned reform of the protection of the constitution and the establishment of the announced independent commission of inquiry. To investigate the attack, wait for the participation of parliament. “Of course, the parliament, the parliamentary groups should be involved,” said Green MP David Stögmüller in an interview with the “Wiener Zeitung”. Ironically, on Tuesday, the budget committee’s deliberations on the home affairs chapter were also on the agenda, allowing MPs to meet with the interior minister.
Green praise for Nehammer’s first step towards BAT reform
“It is no secret that BTV has been suffering from serious problems for a long time,” Stögmüller stressed. Therefore, it is no secret that a reform is necessary because the BVT had “massive complaints” even before the house searches ordered by Kickl in 2018. Now a first part has been decided. Nehammer has announced a more comprehensive reform for early 2021.
The ecologist member of the National Council credits the ÖVP Minister of the Interior with the fact that the first stage of the BVT reform was very involved. “I take off my hat”, praised Stögmüller: “I hope this path will continue as well.” Because, according to Stögmüller: “Such a major reform can only be carried out together along partisan lines.” The parliament’s involvement also applies to him for the establishment of the independent inquiry commission, which the Interior Minister promised the week before. This should verify any errors in the procedure and observation of the killer F. in the last few months. The killer was released in early December 2019 after being found guilty of fighting for the Islamic State (IS). In the summer, their surveillance was obviously interrupted, although there had been information from Slovakia to Vienna that it wanted to buy ammunition and despite warnings from Germany that there had been meetings with Islamists from Germany and Switzerland in Vienna.
Who will head the investigative commission and who will belong to it was left open on Tuesday. Viennese police chief Gerald Pürstl resisted in the ORF “Mittagsjournal” to express further consequences in addition to the replacement last week of the head of the Vienna State Office for the Protection of the Constitution. He reiterated several times that “necessary steps” were the subject of the inquiry committee.
The Board of the Ombudsman, Walter Rosenkranz’s best ombudsman, became active. An investigation into the terrorist investigations has been launched.
ÖVP attacks Kickl for betraying the raid
This is politically explosive because Rosenkranz was president of the FPÖ club in parliament during the black-blue coalition. The review should provide clarity because there is a suspicion “that the impeccable actions of the responsible authorities and the resulting measures of the judiciary could have prevented the terrorist attack,” Rosenkranz said. Specifically, it examines the processes surrounding the failed ammunition purchase in Slovakia, the broken observation of the murderer, and the possible betrayal of the large-scale action that has been prepared against radical political Islam.
The loud music accompanying the ongoing investigations into the Vienna terrorist attack is a harsh exchange of blows between the ÖVP and the FPÖ, who have always displayed a special harmony in public during their reign from December 2017 to May 2019. Former FPÖ Interior Minister Kickl classified BVT as a “disaster” and urged Interior Minister Nehammer to resign. For the ÖVP, ÖVP club president August Wöginger and security spokesman Karl Mahrer moved in on Tuesday to relieve the interior minister and attack Kickl at a press conference. That culminated in Wöginger’s attack: “Kickl left a lot of manure, not just horse manure,” he said, referring to Kickl’s plans for police horses. The top of the FPÖ with president Norbert Hofer rushed to help the club president.
