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TERRORISM

Austrian teen jihadist jailed for bomb plot

A 14-year-old boy who plotted a bomb attack on a Vienna train station was sentenced on Tuesday to eight months' detention.

Austrian teen jihadist jailed for bomb plot
Rudolf Mayer, lawyer to the accused teen. Photo: Sven Wolter/Wikimedia

He was also found guilty of belonging to a “terrorist” organization and given an additional suspended jail sentence of 16 months by a court in his hometown of Sankt-Pölten.

The Austrian teenager of Turkish origin, named only as Mertan G., was arrested in his home last October after he began enquiring online about buying bomb parts. 

According to prosecutors, the jihadist teenager was planning to carry out an attack on Vienna's Westbahnof train station and had made contact online with terrorist networks including Isis and al-Qaeda. 

He intended to join “holy war” in Syria alongside Isis after carrying out the attack, the charge sheet said. 

After his initial arrest the boy was released from custody in November but then arrested again in January after he went into hiding and violated the parole conditions. He was picked up in Vienna and has since been kept in pre-trial detention until appearing in court in Sankt Pölten for his trial.

The boy's lawyer, Rudolf Mayer, said his client had “come to understand that he had succumbed to good propaganda”.

The teenager's legal defence said the boy had turned to religion following problems in his private life.

His lawyer said: “He wanted to be deeply religious, and then as a teenager came across pages on the internet that claimed to represent the only true religion.”

Mayer, who became well-known after representing Josef Fritzl in 2009, added that the teen believed that through religion he could do something good, “namely to defeat the unbelievers and fight”.

Police had said at the time of his arrest in October 2014 that the boy made “concrete enquiries about buying ingredients” for a bomb and “planned to explode the devices in public places, such as the Vienna Westbahnhof,” a major train station.

Unconfirmed press reports said Isis had offered to pay him 25,000 euros ($27,250) if he managed to carry out the attack.

In common with other European countries, Austria has seen a steady flow of people leaving or attempting to leave the country in order to join Isis militants in Syria and Iraq.

According to the Austrian interior ministry, more than 200 have done so, including some women and minors. Around 70 have since returned, several of whom are in custody awaiting trial.

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TERRORISM

What is the risk of new terror attacks in Austria?

Following the March 22nd attack in Moscow’s Crocus City Hall that left over 140 dead, European governments are evaluating the threat of terror attacks. Is Austria a target for fresh terrorist attacks?

What is the risk of new terror attacks in Austria?

With responsibility for the Moscow attack being taken by the Islamist terror organisation ISIS-K, national intelligence services are reevaluating the threat posed to targets within their borders. 

‘No concrete threat’

Austrian officials have been quick to give their appraisal of the situation. 

“We currently have the Islamist scene under control,” stressed Omar Haijawi-Pirchner, head of the Directorate of State Security & Intelligence (DSN) – the governmental agency responsible for combatting internal threats – in an interview with the Ö1 Morgenjournal radio programme on Tuesday. 

He continued: “The terrorist attacks in Moscow, for example, definitely increase the risk. But at the moment, we do not see any concrete threat of an attack in Austria,”

Other experts and officials have warned that while there are no concrete threats, Austrians should not be complacent. 

‘Situation is still valid’ 

Interior Minister Gerhard Karner announced tighter security at church festivals during the Easter period, in the days after the attack, and stressed that the high terror alert level introduced after the October 7 Hamas attacks was still in place. 

“This increased risk situation is still valid,” noted Karner.

READ MORE: What does Austria’s raised terror alert mean for the public?

Meanwhile, terror researcher Peter Neumann of King’s College London told ORF’s ‘ZiB 2’ news broadcast on Monday that Austria remains a potential target due to its Central Asian migrant population. 

Neumann noted that countries at most risk are those “in which Tajik and Central Asian diasporas exist and where ISIS-K finds it relatively easy to identify and recruit people”. 

He continued, identifying both Austria and Germany as “countries in which the ISPK is particularly active and which are particularly at risk from terrorist attacks”.

New threats

Austria has not been spared from attacks from homegrown terrorists.

On November 2nd 2020, amid Coronavirus lockdowns, Austrian-born Kujtim Fejzulai shot and killed four, injuring twenty-three others during a shooting spree across Vienna. He was ultimately shot dead by police. 

Fejzulai was already under surveillance by federal authorities for his beliefs and had been released from prison on parole less than a year before. 

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