Austrian police foil planned attack on Vienna’s pride parade; three arrested

Authorities in Austria, on Sunday (June 18) said they foiled a possible attack on a pride parade which was to be held in the capital of Vienna on Saturday. The police have arrested three suspects, aged 20, 17 and 14, who allegedly sympathised with the extremist Islamic State group.

What did the officials say about the possible attack?

The pride parade in the Austrian capital city which was held to celebrate LGBTQ+ rights took place on Saturday with around 300,000 people, said the officials. The three suspects were arrested an hour before the parade by Austria’s Cobra special forces, the head of the domestic intelligence service told reporters.

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“Through the successful and also timely intervention, we managed to defuse the moment of danger for Vienna Pride and to ensure the safety of all participants,” said Omar Haijawi-Pirchner from the State Protection and Intelligence Directorate. He also went on to assure that there was “no danger for the participants of the parade at any time.”

According to the Austrian public broadcaster ORF, the country’s intelligence service had recently received information about the suspects’ alleged plans and placed them “under constant control”. The arrest took place following the orders of the St. Poelten public prosecutor’s office and house searches on Saturday in which officials reportedly found evidence, including weapons.

While Haijawi-Pirchner did not give details about how theattack could have taken place, he said items found at the suspects’ house were prohibited under Austria’s weapons law. However, the head of the intelligence service did say that the suspects would have used knives and a car for the attack.

The joint operation was conducted by the Vienna police and Austria’s state protection service. Speaking about the possibility of thecancellation of the event, Haijawi-Pirchner said that it was discussed but in the end, they decided not to after they were certain the three men had no accomplices based on well-founded and reliable investigative findings.

The organisers of the parade were informed about the events after the police raid had taken place, on Saturday. Speaking about the incident, Ann-Sophie Otte, chairwoman of the Homosexual Initiative Vienna, said “We will not let the enemies of rights for LGBTQI people, democracy and an open society get us down,” as quoted by Austrian news agency APA.

What do we know about the suspects?

According to Haijawi-Pirchner, three suspects aged between 14 and 20 were Austrian citizens with Bosnian and Chechen roots and had radicalised online and sympathised with the Islamic State group. However, the suspect’s identities were not revealed. He added, one of the suspects was already known to police.

Austrian lawmakers express shock

Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer, on Sunday, took to Twitter and expressed his gratitude to the investigators for preventing “a possible Islamist attack in Vienna.” He added, “This shows once again that we must never give in in the fight against radicals and extremists.”

Meanwhile, the Mayor of Vienna Michael Ludwig expressed shock over the report and said, “There must be no place for hate and exclusion in Vienna. Our city is colorful and cosmopolitan,” as quoted by APA.

(With inputs from agencies)

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