Vienna terror attack: Swiss authorities confirm two arrested men were friends of gunman

Swiss authorities confirmed on Wednesday that two men arrested near Zurich were "obviously friends" of a gunman who killed four people in a shooting rampage in Vienna and said police were investigating the full extent of their relationship with him.

Investigators are trying topiece together more information about the gunman's circle after detaining 14 people in the wake of Monday's shooting, the first major attack in Austria for decades and the first blamed on a jihadist.

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The assailant, named as 20-year-old dual Austrian-Macedonian national Kujtim Fejzulai, had been convicted and sentenced to prison in April last year for trying to travel to Syria and join IS.

Watch: CCTV, witness footage show terrorist suspect open fire in Vienna

Swiss police arrested two men, aged 18 and 24, on Tuesday in the town of Winterthur, which has become a focus of concern about Islamist radicalism in recent years.

Swiss Justice Minister Karin Keller-Sutter, in a panel discussion shown on the St. Galler Tagblatt newspaper's website, said the two arrested men were "obviously friends" of the gunman. She said they had met "in person" but did not say when.

Both men, whose names have not been released, are already the subject of two criminal cases being prosecuted by the Swiss attorney general's office (OAG) and which were opened in 2018 and 2019, the Swiss attorney general's told Reuters in an email. The older man is a suspect in one of those cases.

The Islamic State group,which has claimed numerous attacks in Europe,said Tuesday a "soldier of the caliphate" was responsible for the shooting, which killed four people and left more wounded.

The gunman opened fire indiscriminately in the historic centre of the city just hours before Austria imposed a coronavirus lockdown, when people were out in bars and restaurants enjoying a final night of relative freedom.

ISLAMIST PREACHERS

Winterthur, once a prominent industrial centre about 20 kilometres from the border with Germany, was the site of a now-shuttered mosque that officials said had attracted preachers who espoused "hate speech".

Several young people from the Winterthur area who were linked to the mosque travelled to Syria to fight with Islamic State. Membership and support of the militant group is outlawed in Switzerland.

In September, a man Swiss media dubbed the "Emir of Winterthur" and described as a leading Islamist militant in Switzerland, was sentenced to 50 months in prison for ties to Islamic State.

Switzerland has largely been spared Islamist violence, but authorities are concerned that the kind of attacks seen in neighbouring France, Germany and now Austria could also occur on Swiss territory.

The OAG said on Wednesday that a fatal stabbing of a Portuguese man in September in the town of Morges, in western Switzerland, was still being investigated for a possible "terrorist motive".

A Swiss-Turkish national has been arrested.