Austria closes mosques frequented by Vienna attacker

VIENNA • Austria has closed a mosque and an Islamic association frequented by a man who shot four people dead in a rampage through the capital Vienna on Monday, Integration Minister Susanne Raab said yesterday.

The two sites had contributed to the attacker's radicalisation, she told a news conference.

The 20-year-old convicted Islamist militant was shot dead by police within minutes of opening fire on bystanders and bars. He was later identified as dual Austrian-Macedonian national Kujtim Fejzulai.

Ms Raab said the government's religious affairs office "was informed by the interior ministry that Monday's attacker, since his release from prison, had repeatedly visited two Vienna mosques".

The mosques are in Vienna's western suburbs, one called the Melit Ibrahim mosque in the Ottakring district and the other, the Tewhid mosque in the Meidling area.

The BVT domestic intelligence agency "told us that the visits to these mosques furthered the attacker's radicalisation," Ms Raab said.

Only one of the mosques was officially registered as such, she added.

A statement from the officially recognised Islamic Religious Community of Austria said one officially registered mosque was being shut because it had broken rules over "religious doctrine and its constitution", as well as national legislation governing Islamic institutions.

The Vienna prosecutor's department yesterday told AFP that six of the 16 people detained since the attack have been released, with the rest still in custody as the probe into the attacker's circle continues.

Fejzulai had previously been convicted for trying to join the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

The head of the agency responsible for anti-terror operations in Vienna has been suspended pending an investigation into Monday's attack, police said yesterday.

"The head of the regional Office for the Protection of the Constitution and Anti-Terrorism asked me to suspend his functions because he doesn't want to stand in the way of an orderly inquiry and explanation" of the events surrounding the attack, Vienna police president Gerhard Puerstl told a press conference.

Police in Germany yesterday searched homes and businesses linked to four people believed to have had ties with Fejzulai, whom the Austrian authorities have described as an "Islamist terrorist".

The suspects detained in Germany during raids there had spent time with Fejzulai, Mr Puerstl said.

That information, combined with intelligence from Slovakia that the attacker had tried to buy ammunition there, could have led to a "different outcome" and a different assessment of the threat he posed, Mr Puerstl said.

Germany's BKA criminal police earlier said a federal judge had issued search warrants for the homes and businesses in the German towns of Osnabrueck, Kassel and in the district of Pinneberg near Hamburg after the Austrian judiciary transferred some of its findings on the attack to German prosecutors.

Switzerland has arrested two men in connection with the attack.

Swedish police said they put forces on national alert yesterday after a series of militant attacks in Europe, although the nation's terrorism threat level remained unchanged.

"The aim is, among other things, that the police can react quickly should there be a terror attack," Swedish police said in a statement.

REUTERS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE