At the trial of the November 2020 terror attack in Vienna, four defendants were found guilty of murder as supporters of the perpetrator. The jury found it established Wednesday night that they helped select the target for the attack and procured firearms and ammunition.
The public prosecutor’s office had also accused two other men of having contributed to the murder by preparing the assassination. However, the jury in the Vienna district court acquitted her of this main charge due to a lack of evidence. The guilty verdicts are not yet final.
The 20-year-old perpetrator was a sympathizer of the Islamic State (IS) terrorist militia. He killed four people in Vienna city center on November 2, 2020 before being shot dead by police. One of the fatalities was a German student. 23 passers-by were injured, some seriously, including some Germans.
An investigative report on the Islamist attack in 2021 revealed serious failures by the Austrian security authorities. According to the first report by a government investigative committee, the authorities had missed several opportunities to recognize the danger posed by the later assassin and to react to it.
After the young Islamist was released from prison in December 2019, it took until October for a risk assessment to be completed, the report said. Accordingly, the 20-year-old from North Macedonia posed a “high risk”.
He had been sentenced to the previous prison sentence for attempting to travel to Syria to fight alongside IS. However, he did not have to serve the full 22-month sentence. In early December 2019, he was released early from prison after apparently feigning successful participation in a deradicalisation program.
The authors of the report criticized the fact that almost ten months had elapsed before the risk assessment was carried out. The threat had already become clear in July when he met well-known German and Swiss Islamists. According to the report, the Vienna State Office for the Protection of the Constitution and Counter-Terrorism (LVT) blamed a lack of resources and overwork for the delay.
