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The intelligence service and judicial authorities did not realize that the later perpetrator was attempting to buy ammunition and was misleading the probation officers. For the coalition, the dilemma between the rights to freedom and the fight against terrorism harbors a potential for conflict.
Interior Minister Karl Nehammer is under considerable pressure in parliament.
The atmosphere in central Vienna could hardly be more disparate: People lit thousands of candles at crime scenes on Thursday and stood still in front of makeshift memorials. The marks of forensic officers can be seen everywhere on the ground, including at Morzinplatz, where police shot the killer on Monday night, who had previously killed four people and injured 22. A single candle burns for him , and some young men have gathered there, watched suspiciously by half a dozen officers.
Minister of the Interior versus Minister of the Interior
Parliament is in a special session just a few hundred meters away, and politicians are involved in a violent exchange of blows. The opposition Freedom Party (FPÖ) had ended the truce when Herbert Kickl, its former Interior Minister, made public strong accusations: the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution and the Defense of Terrorism (BVT), which is subordinate to the Minister of the Interior, Karl Nehammer, despite clear indications of an immediate danger from the perpetrator not acted upon. Kickl’s call for Nehammer to resign was also followed by politicians from other parties.
Representatives of different religions commemorate the victims of the terrorist attack.
Nehammer reacted angrily to his predecessor’s accusations and found that he was jeopardizing the ongoing investigation with indiscretions. Furthermore, during Kickl’s all-time tenure, the BVT was decisively weakened with a dubious raid and politically motivated staff raids.
However, the politician from the conservative People’s Party (ÖVP) had to admit that the accusations are not unfounded. Nehammer has to bear the delicate question of whether the attack could have been prevented. The killer, a convicted Islamist who was released on parole in December 2019 after serving two-thirds of his prison sentence, tried unsuccessfully to buy ammunition in Slovakia in July. The authorities became suspicious and notified the Austrian authorities through Europol.
The failure of state security agents to take action against the 20-year threat for almost four months was explained by police on Thursday with the difficulty of establishing the identity of the Austrian with Albanian and North Macedonian roots. An observation is only legally possible if this has been clarified beyond any doubt. Viennese police chief Gerhard Pürstl gave the Slovaks a share of the responsibility, as they were slow to answer questions. “We act to the best of our knowledge and belief,” Pürstl said, and so we follow the instinct that Austrian authorities regularly observe to blame others under pressure.
On Friday, however, Interior Minister Nehammer had to admit that another mishap had occurred in the run-up to the attack: the latest terrorist met in July with several people who were monitored by the Vienna Office for the Protection of the Constitution. on behalf of Germany. The chief of these had to resign and new personal consequences were announced.
Lack of coordination
Now it is assumed that a commission of inquiry with representatives of the ministries of the Interior and Justice will clarify the errors. For her part, Green Justice Minister Alma Zadic has to ask herself how the terrorist was able to deceive the institutions under his control, which would have been responsible for his supervision and de-radicalization.
Favorable factors were poor coordination between the authorities involved and the lack of resources to monitor people in danger; In 2019, the Interior Ministry estimated their number in Austria at 320. To improve coordination, the reintroduction of the security police case conferences, which were abolished under the FPÖ Minister of the Interior Kickl, is being discussed in the that the different departments exchange information.
In large part, it is indisputable that the BVT needs urgent reform. The FPÖ is not to blame for this alone, because the problems in the news service, which has been dominated by the ÖVP for decades, were already great before Kickl. The “baggy hats” will be given more skills, for example in digital surveillance. Furthermore, pre-trial detention for people at risk, which was controversially discussed in 2019, is now back on the table. Chancellor Sebastian Kurz described them in parliament as “time bombs for our society.”
Foreseeable conflicts
The introduction of such preventive detention would require a constitutional reform, for which the government also needed the support of the opposition. The Greens only reluctantly agreed to be included in the coalition program and also took a much more liberal line than the Conservative government partner when it came to fundamental rights and data protection. The dilemmas between freedom rights and the fight against terrorism, which Austria will have to face in the near future, harbor considerable potential for conflict, also for the coalition.
