In the trial of six defendants said to have supported the killer, who killed four people and injured numerous others on November 2, 2020 in central Vienna, the focus on Tuesday was the interrogation of two friends of the killer . It is said that they not only encouraged him in his plan, but also supported him in his final preparations a few hours before the attack.
Before the questioning of the two defendants scheduled for today’s trial day, the judge asked a further question for the four defendants who were questioned last week. During an initial interrogation a few days after the attack, the 28-year-old was shown a photo of the killer, which he said he did not recognize at the time. When asked by the judge how he could not recognize a man in whose apartment he had lived for several weeks immediately before, the defendant replied that at the time he was suffering from a head injury and therefore did not recognize the murderer.
The second defendant, 22, a longtime friend of the killer, was then questioned. He had been in contact with the killer up until shortly before the attack. On the afternoon of November 2, 2020, a few hours before the attack, he was at the killer’s house – to help him prepare, as the prosecution claims. To return a book to his friend, however, he answered before the jury.
The next killer contacted him on Nov. 2 and asked him to return a book, the 22-year-old said. He met with the third suspect, another friend of the killer, and then went to the killer’s apartment. He couldn’t explain why the book hadn’t been found either in the apartment or with the killer.
In front of the apartment door, only “irrelevant things” were talked about. When the second and third accused noticed that the time for prayer was approaching, they asked the last killer if they could pray in his apartment. He would have denied it. It didn’t seem funny to him, “it was just his style”. The two accused then left the apartment and held their afternoon prayers in a nearby cul-de-sac.
The two, however, are challenged not to have left the apartment after a short time, but to have been with the killer during the final preparations. The second and third defendants allegedly supported the killer in his search for a target and remained in the apartment even as he took his confession note.
The 22-year-old Austrian citizen is also accused of distributing IS propaganda material. He is also said to have accompanied the killer to the delivery of the assault rifle later used in the crime. He was aware why the next murderer was in custody and that he had to go regularly to the deradicalisation association “Derad”. He allegedly noticed that he was “trying to get better,” according to the defendant.
The 24-year-old third-party defendant was also questioned on Tuesday. He too had been a good friend of the killer for several years. As is known, the next assassin traveled to Turkey in 2018 with the aim of continuing on to Syria and joining IS. In the same trial, the third defendant was sentenced to 22 months’ imprisonment because he supported the goals of Islam, swore allegiance and announced to others that he intended to travel to IS territory to take part in combat operations.
After both were released from prison in December 2019, they initially had little contact. The contact did not escalate again until 23 October. That day the parents of the third defendant were not at home and from that moment “his door was open to all his friends”, including the subsequent murderer.
He has changed his attitude since his imprisonment, and “is ashamed of what he was convicted of,” the defendant stressed several times. The judge compared this to evaluations of his cell phone data, which show that after his release he had watched several thousand videos of preachers whom experts described as radical Islamists.
She last saw the killer on November 2nd. In essence, he confirmed the second defendant’s story. However, that day he did not see the book, the reason for the visit. “Just the print in a carrying bag,” he added in response to several questions from the judge. In retrospect, he wonders how the next killer “could have been so calm”.
On the way home, the killer forwarded him a video on Instagram. It read in Arabic: “Soon – God willing – we will restore it (caliphate) to its original state” and the hashtags #Islamic State and #Caliphate. The defendant replied with the words “jeje”, as much as “jaja”. That was not approval of the content, he did not speak Arabic at all and did not understand the content, according to the fourth defendant.
Analysis of his cell phone data also showed that he repeatedly searched for the name of a French restaurant in the immediate vicinity of the next target of the attack. The killer called the same bar on the afternoon of November 2, presumably because this was a possible target for the attack. Prosecutors believe that both the second and third defendants were at his home at the time of the call.
The third defendant is also said to have tried to obtain false documents for the subsequent killer so that he could leave the country again. Like the other defendants, he is accused of forwarding IS propaganda. Also, in the early morning hours before the attack, he is said to have exchanged views with the killer on how to factory reset cell phones and watched relevant videos.
All the defendants have now been questioned. The trial will continue on Tuesday 20 December with the first questioning of witnesses. Witnesses for the fifth and sixth defendants are asked to further explain how the killer obtained weapons and ammunition.
