Vienna attacks, acquitted for lack of evidence
The public ministry of the Confederation (MPC) also abandoned the proceedings against a second Islamist from Winterthur suspected of being involved in the attentive events of November 2020 due to lack of evidence. The young man – who was 18 at the time of the – was sentenced to six months’ probation and a fine of 1,000 francs for depictions of acts of brutal violence and infringement of the law that prohibits groups such as ISIS.
The MPC had already abandoned in mid-January proceedings against another from Winterthur who had been the young man arrested in connection with the attack in Vienna. The same Public Ministry today confirmed news reported by the Nzz Ministry and the Tamedia newspapers, specifying that the abandonment decisions are final.
The facts of Vienna
On November 2, 2020, a sympathizer of the self-styled Islamic State (Isis) opened fire in central Vienna, killing four people and injuring 23 others, some of them seriously. The next day, the Zurich police had arrested that they had already been involved in criminal proceedings for terrorism. The suspicion that the two may have ‘supported or moved’ the attack ‘through a causal contribution to the crime’ has not found confirmation and there is no evidence that they were involved in the attack or that they were aware of it in advance, it reads. in abandonment decisions.
The conviction in the young man of the two refers in particular to the possession of an ISIS video showing more people being beheaded and shot, which the young man showed to his colleagues. You acted “out of deep ideological conviction” and still move “in a Salafist environment of people known to the authorities,” reads the MPC’s indictment decree.
In view of his 180-day suspended sentence, he will not receive compensation for the 176 days spent in pre-trial detention. Instead, he will be entitled to a compensation for moral pie of 3,250 francs, motivated in particular by the possible damage due to the media coverage of the case. He will also have to bear the procedural costs of 7,000 francs.
In the case of the 24-year-old, it is still unclear whether he will be compensated for pre-trial detention. Although the main charges have been dropped, he is in fact still at the center of an as yet unfinished proceeding for less serious charges.