The four young people are said to have attacked a 16-year-old German woman near Linz Central Station on Wednesday evening. Officers from the Aliens’ Police took notice and intervened. The perpetrators fled. A little later, three boys – two 15-year-old Afghans and a 14-year-old Iranian – were arrested. All three are innocent, but they are already known to the police because of “minor crimes,” they said. The detention was initially imposed for 14 days on Friday evening.
A fourth suspect, a 15-year-old Afghan, turned himself in to the Vöcklabruck police station on Friday, but initially claimed that he had done nothing. Two further stated that there had been sexual contacts with the girl “on a consensual basis”, the third is silent, prosecutor spokeswoman Ulrike Breiteneder reported on Saturday.
Victim charged all four ‘clearly’
However, the victim had “clearly incriminated all four of those arrested in the sense of a rape allegation,” said Breiteneder. One is “far away from the attempt”, but it is about “repeated, completed acts by different perpetrators”, she clarified. The 16-year-old had been hospitalized and gaps in her memory emerged when she was questioned. Traces are currently being examined, the evaluation will take some time. It is still uncertain how the crime happened and whether the perpetrators were acquainted with the victim.
The penalty range in the case of a conviction for rape is up to five years for young people if the act results in serious physical injury – for example in the form of post-traumatic stress disorder – up to seven and a half years. For adults, the penalty is twice as high.
Women should wear hats
However, strange warnings appeared at the Linz train station on Friday, as the police confirmed on Saturday in a report by “Standard”. Women were warned not to enter the station area alone because “their safety” could no longer be “guaranteed”. Women were advised not to dress revealingly and to wear a hat, and to keep a meter apart. The notes were removed by the security service and did not come from the ÖBB or the police, it said. There are videos from ÖBB that are now being evaluated, the State Office for the Protection of the Constitution and Combating Terrorism (LVT) is investigating on suspicion of hate speech, according to the police.
According to crime statistics, 142 rapes were reported in Upper Austria in 2020, 88 percent of which were resolved. The police say that the majority of rapes are committed in the private sphere, but that Afghans are often involved in attacks in public spaces, which are relatively rare in absolute numbers. Overall, the number of crimes committed by Afghans would decrease somewhat, but this relatively small group still appears very high in the crime statistics. The crimes are primarily violent and drug-related offences.
Source: Nachrichten
