A court in Vienna sentenced two alleged accomplices of the 2020 jihadist attack in Vienna, who was shot dead by police on the evening of the attack, to life in prison from Wednesday to Thursday, AFP reports.

On November 2, 2020, 20-year-old Kuytim Feizulai shot and killed four bystanders and wounded more than 20 people on the streets of the center of the Austrian capital, sparking panic in the normally very safe country of 9 million people.

Before taking action, the Austrian recorded a message of loyalty to the Islamic State (IS) group, which claimed responsibility for the attack.

Two years later, four Austrians, a Kosovar and a Chechen, aged between 22 and 32, were on trial.

At the end of the trial, which stretched over several months, and the jury sitting for about twelve hours, the verdict was delivered late at night.

Two of them were found guilty of “facilitating the commission of crimes.” During the announcement of the sentence, they remained unmoved, noted the journalist of the France Presse agency.

They were condemned for supporting and encouraging the aggressor in his fatal project, offering him material and technical assistance or even preparing weapons and ammunition.

Two others were convicted of the same crimes, but received lighter sentences (from 19 to 20 years in prison) because one was under 21 at the time of the attack, and the other partially admitted his responsibility.

In the end, the last two were acquitted of the main charges. But for belonging to the SI group, they received two years in prison, of which eight months were spent in solitary confinement.

During the debate, which took place under tight security, the prosecution spoke of a “treasonous” attack on “our values ​​and democracy”.

The defense said the six denied responsibility for the attack, trying to distance themselves from the shooter, whom they barely knew.

One of the lawyers, Wolfgang Mekis, on Wednesday condemned the accusations as “foot-of-clay” and the “biased” investigation designed to cover up the authorities’ mistakes that failed to prevent the tragedy.

After the tragedy, the Austrian government was heavily criticized for failing to track down the attacker.

Kuytim Faizulai, whose parents came from North Macedonia, was convicted in 2018 of trying to join IS in Syria.

The intelligence services were informed about his attempt to buy weapons after his release from prison and about the contacts he had with jihadists in neighboring countries, but they did not discover how dangerous he was.

In response, Austria introduced electronic monitoring of released jihadists in 2021 and created a separate criminal offense to punish “religious extremism” crimes.

(source: Agerpress)