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Four people were killed and several were injured in the terrorist attack Monday night in Vienna. Several attackers opened fire on people in the center of the Austrian capital. One of the attackers, a 20-year-old man previously convicted of participating in a terrorist organization and released on parole, was killed by the police. Four others have been arrested and one remains at large and is wanted by the police. Witnesses describe the horrible moments they went through: “It was a professional attack. He didn’t shoot randomly, he was trained. “
Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said in a speech to the nation on Tuesday that 14 other people had been injured, some in serious condition. Among the injured is a police officer.
Kurz also said that four civilians – an elderly man, an elderly woman, a young passerby and a waitress – were “killed in cold blood.”
Police are now reviewing more than 20,000 videos submitted by citizens at the time of the attack. Some of the images have also been disseminated on social networks and capture sequences of the terrorist attack. The young passerby had no chance against one of the terrorists. He was shot when he realized the danger and tried to hide behind the edge of a building.
The attack took place in a crowded area. Witness: “We all feared for our lives”
Rabbi Schlomo Hofmeister, who saw the moment of the attack, told CNN that the terrorist did not look confused and did not shoot at random, he was very well prepared, coordinated, like a fighter.
“It was a warm night and many people were outside, enjoying the last hours of freedom before the lockdown. I saw the attack at my house. He ran towards the people with a rifle. He ran back and forth, he ran into the bars and I heard those bars getting shot, “Hofmeister said.
Monday’s shootings in Vienna took place in an area crowded with cafes and restaurants.
Jimmy Eroglu, a 42-year-old waiter, was waiting in his cafe when suddenly people started running inside.
“The guests were outside and suddenly they started coming in, so I went to look and asked them what was going on and they said it was a shooting,” Eroglu describes the moment of the attack.
He said he poked his head out the door to see what was going on and heard “at least 15 shots.”
“I still can’t believe it,” he said. “We all feared for our lives.”
Eroglu closed the doors of the cafe and told everyone to stay inside. Three minutes later, the police were on the scene.
Journalists, trapped in the newsroom near the scene of the attack
Der Falter journalists published a report on Tuesday morning on how they experienced the events of Monday night.
“We are afraid, death is coming. When the shots were heard, our colleagues had gone for cigarettes. I thought they were firecrackers, but then I saw them rushing into the newsroom, ”writes Florian Klenk, editor-in-chief of Der Falter.
The journalists describe the moment the terrorist was killed “a few steps” from his office and how, before that, his colleagues, Eva Konzett and Lukas Matzinger, “angrily knocked” on the newsroom door so that they could enter after being caught by bursts of bullets.
“We turned off the office lights and hid in a safe place. Then he withdrew again. Some were paralyzed, others searched the web for videos, some called their families. Shortly after the murder, at 8:24 pm , Interior Minister Karl Nehammer called us in person. Nehammer seemed genuinely concerned, but calm, “reporters said.
Who is the murdered attacker
Austria’s interior minister told APA that the Vienna attacker is a 20-year-old who had a conviction for his involvement in a terrorist organization, Agerpres reports.
According to Nehammer, Kujtim Fejzulai, the attacker killed by the police forces, had Austrian and North Macedonian citizenship.
Nehammer stressed that the attacker is certainly a supporter of the radical Islamist organization Islamic State.
Kujtim Fejzulai was sentenced on April 25, 2019 to 22 months in prison for trying to go to Syria to join the Islamic State.
On December 5, he was released on parole, benefiting from the provisions of the Juvenile Penal Law, added the minister.
Editing: Robert Kiss
