The perpetrator Kujtim Fejzulai, a 20-year-old born in Austria who also had citizenship in northern Macedonia, was shot dead by police nine minutes after he launched his attack in the Austrian capital Vienna, writes The Guardian.
He was armed with automatic weapons and a fake bomb belt.
Killed four
Fejzulai killed four people and injured 23 in the terrorist attack, among them a police officer guarding the synagogue where the attack took place.
The victims are "an elderly man, an elderly woman, a young man who passed by and a waitress", according to Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz.
Tried to join IS
The perpetrator is said to have previously expressed sympathy for the Islamic State, IS, and left the country to join the terrorist group in 2018. But he was stopped by Turkish authorities and sent back to Austria, where he was arrested by police and sentenced to 22 months in prison, writes The Guardian.
Among other things, he was forced to participate in a program for de-radicalization.
After serving his sentence, however, he secretly continued to sympathize with IS and violent Islamism.
"Succeeded in cheating the system"
At a press conference, Austrian Interior Minister Karl Nehammer confirms the information.
- Everyone has certainly worked to the best of their ability.
But the fact is that the terrorist managed to deceive the legal system's program of de-radicalization, he deceived the people in it and got an earlier release through it.
Therefore, there were no warning signs of his radicalization, says the Minister of the Interior.