Police in Slovakia have revealed that “suspects from Austria” tried to buy ammunition there in the summer and that Austrian authorities were tipped off.
Four people were fatally shot and 23 others wounded when a gunman went on the rampage in the center of Vienna on Monday night.
It has since emerged he had been released early from a jail sentence for trying to join jihadists in Syria.
Reports suggest his trip to buy bullets failed as he had no gun licence.
According to German media, the 20-year-old, who was shot dead by police, travelled to neighbouring Slovakia in July to buy ammunition for a Kalashnikov AK-47 assault rifle but returned empty-handed.
Slovak police confirmed that they had passed the message on to their Austrian colleagues immediately, adding they would not comment further.
Who were the victims?
More details have emerged about the four people murdered in the centre of Vienna in the hours before new coronavirus restrictions were due to come into force:
• A 24-year-old German student was killed in front of the restaurant in Ruprechtsplatz where she worked as a waitress; she’d been studying at the nearby University of Applied Arts
• A 21-year-old man originally from North Macedonia was shot near Fleischmarkt; Nedzip V. was described as a painter who loved football and played for years for local club FC Bisamberg
• A 39-year-old Austrian man was killed in front of a fast food restaurant in Schwedenplatz
• A 44-year-old Austrian woman died later in hospital of her wounds. Reports said she worked nearby for Vienna-based company Tribotecc
Among the 23 people wounded in the attack, 13 suffered bullet wounds and seven are in a serious condition. Most are from Austria, but some are from Germany, Slovakia, Luxembourg and other countries. One of those in a serious condition was also a student at the university of applied arts, known as Die Angewandte.
Austrian authorities say the killer was armed with an automatic weapon, a pistol and a machete as well as a fake explosive belt.
They were initially unsure if there had been more than one gunman, after Monday night’s attack which lasted nine minutes across six crime scenes. Jihadist group Islamic State (IS) claimed on its propaganda outlet Amaq that it was behind the attack.
But Interior Minister Karl Nehammer said there was no indication of a second attacker, even though it could not be ruled out.
The centre of Vienna began returning to normal on Wednesday and Mayor Michael Ludwig held a minute’s silence in memory of the victims, as Austria marked a second day of mourning.
Meanwhile, Swiss police arrested two people, in addition to the 14 detained in Austria who were linked to the gunman.
Swiss Justice Minister Karin Keller-Sutter alleged that the pair had been “colleagues” of the gunman. “The three men also met in person,” she told St Galler Tagblatt.
• Nine minutes of murder in Vienna: What we know
• ‘Heroes’ praised for helping Vienna attack victims
Kurz calls for European action
Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz has responded to the Vienna attack by urging the European Union to “focus much more strongly on the problem of political Islam in the future”. He said he had spoken to France’s Emmanuel Macron and many others with the aim of co-ordinating more closely.
He told Germany’s Die Welt: “I hope we will see an end to this misunderstood tolerance and that all countries in Europe will finally realise how dangerous the ideology of political Islam is for our freedom and the European way of life.”
Elsewhere, Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio has called for an EU Patriot Act, along the lines of the US law which increased surveillance powers after the 9/11 attacks.
“Europe and Italy itself cannot continue with just words,” he said, referring to the attacks on Vienna and on Nice last week. The Nice attacker had travelled from Tunisia via Italy into the south of France.
EU Parliament President Antonio Tajani has repeated his call for a European FBI, to co-ordinate the work of police and intelligence services, working in tandem against IS militants.
• In pictures: Scene of gun attack in Vienna
• Caliphate defeated but IS remains a threat
What we know about the gunman
Austria’s interior minister revealed that the “Islamist terrorist”, named Kujtim Fejzulai, had been jailed for 22 months in April 2019 for trying to travel to Syria to join IS jihadists and freed after only eight months.
He was released under more lenient terms for young adults, after convincing the authorities that he no longer held extremist Islamist views, Mr Nehammer said.
He had both Austrian and Macedonian citizenship and relatives in North Macedonia told Reuters news agency he had been caught in Turkey two years ago and sent back to Austria.
Source: BBC
