Yet after saying this, he appears to have “got into the wrong mosque” again, betraying the faith the judge placed in him. Will authorities ponder the implications of that? Almost certainly not.
“Vienna gunman, 20, who killed four and wounded 17 was released early from prison on terror charges because of his age, had wanted to join ISIS in Syria – but ‘was deemed incapable of an attack,'” by Danyal Hussain and Ross Ibbetson, Mailonline, November 3, 2020:
The Vienna gunman who killed four and wounded 17 last night was released early from prison on terror charges because of his age.
Twenty-year-old Kujtim Fejzulai was jailed in April 2019 because he wanted to travel to Syria to join ISIS but he was granted early release in December under juvenile law. The killer was not deemed capable of carrying out an attack, according to a report.
At least one terrorist started shooting close to a synagogue in the city centre at 8pm.
Armed with an automatic rifle, pistol and machete, Fejzulai was ‘neutralised’ at 8.09pm after marauding through the streets wearing a fake explosives belt.
Two women and two men were killed in his attack, although it is unclear if he was the only shooter and a manhunt is ongoing involving 1,000 security personnel after gunfire was heard in six places in the city centre last night.
Fejzulai was born and raised in the city and was one of 90 Austrian Islamic radicals known to intelligence because they wanted to travel to Syria, one national newspaper editor tweeted this morning.
He had Albanian roots and his parents were originally from North Macedonia, Falter editor Florian Kenk wrote. Police thought he was not capable of planning an attack in Vienna, Klenk added….
The Vienna gunman Kujtim Fejzulai made it all the way to an ISIS safe house on the Turkish border with Syria last year before he was stopped by local police.
These are the facts which emerged in Fejzulai’s trial in April, 2019, during which he admitted that he’d ‘got into the wrong mosque.’
Fejzulai told the judge: ‘I wanted to get away from home. I expected a better life. My own apartment, my own income.’
But he’d earned enough through his summer job in 2018 to buy plane tickets to Kabul where he had arranged to meet ISIS contacts.
It was only after buying the ticket that Fejzulai realised he needed a visa to travel to Afghanistan.
On September 1, 2019, Fejzulai arrived in Syria alone. He spent two days in a ‘rat hole,’ his lawyer told the court, ‘No shower, no toilet, no running water.’
He wad captured by police after two days and detained in Turkey for four months before being extradited back to Austria.
Nehammer said Fejzulai’s home had been raided and video material seized. A total of 15 houses have been searched and several people arrested.
Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said this morning: ‘It is now confirmed that yesterday’s attack was clearly an Islamist terror attack. It was an attack out of hatred – hatred for our fundamental values, hatred for our way of life, hatred for our democracy in which all people have equal rights and dignity.’…