The 24-year-old, whom the public prosecutor’s office accuses of the crimes of the terrorist organization and the criminal organization, did not confess to the charges.
His client “perhaps has a very conservative attitude,” but even if this is a Salafist, that alone is not punishable, said the defense attorney: “We still have freedom of religion.” The file contains nine volumes with thousands of pages, and there is nothing to indicate terrorist crimes. Regardless of this, the 24-year-old has been “in solitary confinement for two years. He has been allowed to open the window in the cell for two months,” said the lawyer.
In custody for two years
The man was arrested three weeks after the attack in Vienna. Since then he has been in custody. The accused, who was born in St. Pölten and grew up there and is an IT technician by trade, has been friends with the assassin since 2017, according to the indictment. A direct participation in the attack and concrete assistance in preparatory actions could not be proven to the man in the preliminary investigation. “An investigation in this regard is still open,” said the public prosecutor in her opening statement.
The accused did not deny his contacts with the assassin, but emphasized that he was not criminally accused of anything in this regard. He last dealt with this on October 31 or November 1, 2020 – i.e. immediately before the attack – but in a completely different matter: “He asked me about the collection because he had not paid for his apartment for a long time. He asked me what to do.” He then drove from St. Pölten to the assassin’s apartment that night, but he didn’t open the door: “I wanted to ask him if he needed money, but he didn’t come out.”
Meeting with known Islamists
The 24-year-old also admitted to having taken part in a multi-day meeting in the federal capital in mid-July 2020, which was observed by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution. Known Islamists from Switzerland and Germany had traveled to Vienna to meet with the later assassin, among other things. Two days after their departure, he went to Slovakia to get weapons for an assault rifle, which he then used in the assassination. The fact that this circumstance has a connection to the previous cross-country meeting is an “abstruse theory”, the accused replied to the court’s question. It was a friendly encounter, plans for attacks would not have been an issue: “I’m moving in a Salafist area. But I’m not moving in a criminal area.”
The protection of the constitution became aware of the accused, whom the prosecutor described as a member of the radical Islamist terrorist militia “Islamic State” (IS), at the age of 14. The school he attended at the time reported that he was notable for his radical Islamist tendencies. At the age of 18, he founded the “Ansar” movement, which according to the public prosecutor represented the ideology of the IS. According to the indictment, he taught religion and Islam and held exams in the prayer rooms of the St. Pölten University Clinic. He was therefore charged in 2017, but acquitted in case of doubt.
Radical content preached
The man subsequently transferred his teaching position to a mosque. The content he preached was too radical for the imam, so the accused rented an apartment in St. Pölten in the summer of 2020, which became the focus of state security officers months before the terrorist attack. In addition to Arabic courses, regular religious lectures with Salafist content are said to have found an interested audience from the jihadist scene in the apartment. The later assassin also frequented the apartment, he was primarily interested in lectures with religious content. He was last seen in the St. Pölten apartment at the end of October 2020, a few days before the attack. According to the indictment, the assassin was one of up to 20 participants in the so-called Sunday meetings. One was personally invited to these meetings, and “exclusively radical Islamist ideas” were preached at these meetings, the prosecutor specified.
Specifically, the indictment charges the 24-year-old with translating and distributing books by an Islamist and distributing IS propaganda material in relevant chat channels, in addition to attending Islamist meetings. The prosecutor said the content came “directly from IS media outlets.” The accused was considered an “alpha animal” in the Islamist scene.
Just “chilled and had fun”
Regarding the meeting in the St. Pöltner apartment, the accused explained that he had initially only “chilled out and had fun” with friends there. Then one started with a lecture. There were only seven meetings in total: “The later assassin was there four times.” He didn’t preach anything radical: “It was about me teaching them Arabic.” He has been “dealing with the questions of life” since 2016, came to Islam, taught himself Arabic and wanted to pass on his knowledge. The “Ansar” association also served this purpose: “The main idea behind it was that we wanted to explain Islam to people and break down prejudices.” However, he “did not see himself qualified to teach Islam,” so he limited himself to imparting his knowledge of Arabic and preaching as part of Friday prayers.
“If the meetings had had a radical or political content, I would have interrupted it,” emphasized the accused. In this context, the defense lawyer pointed out that there was not a single witness who confirmed that IS teachings were preached there or that jihad was called for. Some of the participants in these meetings have already been brought before the court: “So far, everyone has been acquitted.”
Regarding the incriminated books, the defense stated that the 24-year-old had only started learning Arabic in 2018 and could therefore not have been the translator into German. He only corrected grammatical and spelling mistakes.
Disappointed with the rule of law
During his interrogation, the accused made it clear that he felt disappointed by the rule of law: “I was repeatedly humiliated by the Republic of Austria and the judiciary.” He was alluding to the previous criminal proceedings in which he was legally acquitted – by then he had also been taken into custody. So far he has not received any compensation from the Finanzprokuratur for this. He was left with legal fees of 10,000 euros, lost his job, and the police “kicked down the door and destroyed my laptop”. Since this trial five years ago, “half the family has stopped talking to me because they think I’m a terrorist.”
The hearing will continue on Thursday with a report by the German Islam scholar and terrorism expert Guido Steinberg and witness interviews. The verdict of the jury is due next Tuesday.
Source: Nachrichten
