BERLIN (REUTERS, AFP) - Austria has closed a mosque and an Islamic association frequented by a man who killed four people when he opened fire on bystanders and bars on Monday, Integration Minister Susanne Raab said on Friday (Nov 6).
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 in the rampage through the Austrian capital Vienna. He was later identified as Kujtim Fejzulai with dual Austrian and North Macedonian citizenship.
Born and raised in Vienna, he had already been convicted of trying to reach Syria to join the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), and had spent time in jail.
The head of the agency responsible for anti-terror operations in the Austrian capital Vienna has been suspended pending an investigation into Monday's attack, police said on Friday.
"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 on Friday searched homes and businesses linked to four people believed to have had ties to the shooter.
People from Germany who were being monitored by German intelligence spent time with the attacker in the Austrian capital in the summer, 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, Puerstl said.
Germany's Der Spiegel magazine had reported earlier this week that the Vienna attacker had made contact with German militants during an attempt to travel to Syria to join the ISIS group.
The Vienna prosecutor's department on Friday told AFP that six of the 16 people detained since the attack have been released, with the rest remaining in custody as the probe into the attacker's circle continues.
The investigation has also expanded to Switzerland, where prosecutors have confirmed that two Swiss men aged 18 and 24 who were arrested on Wednesday had already been the targets of criminal cases over terrorism offences.
