A 23-year-old Syrian national stabbed five people in the city of Villach in the province of Kärnten, in Austria, on Saturday, in what the Bundespolizei said was a random attack that left a 14-year-old dead and four others injured, two critically.
The attacker is said to have legally resided in Austria, police said.
The attack took place at approximately 16.00 Uhr, Polizeisprecher Rainer Dionisio said in an ORD-Kärnten interview.
A 42-year-old food delivery driver from Syria saw the attack taking place from his auto and drove towards the suspect in his car. By that action, he thus prevented anything worse from happening, said Dionisio. The driver was unharmed.
Police embarked upon a large-scale manhunt in case there had been accomplices, using the city’s police helicopter and the Einsatzkommando Cobra, the tier one police tactical unit of the Bundesministerium für Inneres, or Austrian Federal Ministry of the Interior. By evening, it was still unclear as to whether the 23-year-old Syrian had been a lone perpetrator.
Polizeisprecher Dionisio said that the initial witnesses to the attack were also questioned in the evening.
Landeshauptman Peter Kaiser
Landeshauptman Peter Kaiser, who also serves as the Landesparteivositznder of the Sozialdemokratische Partei Österreichs, expressed his condolences to the family of the 14-year-old victim.
“This outrageous atrocity must be met with harsh consequences. I have always said with clarity and unambiguously: Those who live in Kärnten, in Austria, have to respect the law and adjust to our rules and values.”
ÖVP Generalsekretär Christian Stocker said in a post on social media the attacker “must be brought to justice and be punished with the full force of the law.’
Herbert Kickl, Bundesparteiobmann of the FPÖ, the Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs, Austria‘s right-extremist party, said in a social media post that he was “appalled by the horrific act in Villach” and wished the family of the 14-year-old victim who was killed in the attack “much strength.”
Kickl called the attack “a first-class failure of the system, for which a young man in Villach has now had to pay with his life.”
(Photo: Accura Media Group)
