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Ammunition purchase attempt, radical attitudes: Three days after an IS sympathizer’s bloodbath in Vienna, questions are piling up as to whether the security authorities have collapsed. The government now wants to comment on it.
Standing in a nightlife district in the Austrian capital three days after the terrorist attack more and more possible breakdowns by security authorities in focus. A 20-year-old ISIS sympathizer with a criminal record killed four people and injured more than 20 on Monday night before he himself was shot to death by police.
The Austrian parliament will hold a special session on Thursday in which Chancellor Sebastian Kurz (ÖVP), Vice Chancellor Werner Kogler (Greens), Interior Minister Karl Nehammer (ÖVP) and Justice Minister Alma Zadic (Greens) want to make statements .
Supervisors contradict the Interior Ministry
The questions revolve around an attempted purchase of ammunition by the subsequent author in Slovakia, which was reported to the Austrian police. Furthermore, the early release of the man who was allegedly serving a 22-month prison sentence after attempting to join the IS terror group in Syria has become an issue. Nehammer emphasized that the 20-year-old perfectly managed to fool his supervisors in the de-radicalization program.
“There was no deception because our employee never said the man was de-radicalized,” said Derad co-founder Moussa Al-Hassan Diaw of dpa. The Justice Department said probation after two-thirds of the sentence was the only way to require the 20-year-old to participate in the de-radicalization program for three years. Had he served his full sentence in July, such a move would not have been possible.
Diaw reported that according to his supervisor, the 20-year-old has changed and, despite being religious, has developed strong doubts about his own faith. “This self-doubt also very often leads to despair,” Diaw said. Some of those affected prayed more intensely, while others acted or wanted to give up their lives. The supervisor recorded this in one of his last reports before the crime. “He noticed these things. What nobody noticed is that he plans to commit a bloody act in the next few days before the lockdown begins.”
Karl Nehammer, Austrian Interior Minister: It is not clear whether the Office for the Protection of the Constitution observed the murderer. (Source: Hans Punz / APA / dpa)
Was the terrorist the center of attention of the intelligence agencies?
The complaints about the aggressor went to the judicial authority. The Austrian Office for the Protection of the Constitution had contact officers for them, Diaw said. Direct cooperation between the NGO and the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution and the Fight Against Terrorism (BVT) ceased in 2018. “We still don’t know why,” Diaw said. However, Derad is in regular contact with the Vienna State Office for the Protection of the Constitution. The authorities will be informed of imminent danger or highly dangerous hiring.
The Interior Ministry has not yet expressly ruled on the question of whether intelligence agencies were targeting the 20-year-old after his release. Department head Karl Nehammer confirmed on Wednesday that the latest killer had gone to Slovakia with another man in July to buy ammunition. According to an internal letter from the Slovak Interior Ministry made available to the APA news agency, the authorities informed their colleagues in Vienna on July 23.
Austrian police responded on September 10 and identified one of the two potential buyers as the subsequent killer with a criminal record for terrorism. Furthermore, the car was assigned to the mother of a 21-year-old known for his “positive attitude towards jihad and the Islamic State,” it is said.
“In the next steps, something went wrong in the communication,” Nehammer said Wednesday. An independent commission of inquiry must clarify what happened to this information.
Security authorities now assume that the 20-year-old carried out the attack as the sole perpetrator. 14 suspects were detained in their environment on Tuesday, whose possible knowledge or involvement will now be further investigated.
