More and more heinous details are coming to light in the murder case of Leonie (13 years old) from the district of Tulln (Lower Austria). In the course of the press conference, Interior Minister Karl Nehammer ( Austrian People’s Party) and Vienna’s police chief Gerhard Pürstl disclosed further information. She was drugged and then sexually assaulted. Yesterday afternoon, two asylum seekers from Afghanistan, aged 16 and 18, were arrested as suspects. However, the investigators currently assume that there are even more perpetrators.
The 18-year-old had previously come to the attention of the police due to drug-related and violent offences, as was reported at today’s press conference. But apparently nothing happened to him. He was not deported, but had a flat in the Donaustadt district of Vienna. Little Leonie is also said to have died in this apartment. The 16-year-old is said to have applied for asylum only in April 2021, i.e. to have come to Austria ” recently”. Apparently this was a case of a family reunification. His mother and sister are said to have been granted asylum in Austria since 2020. The police assume that there are other perpetrators and are keeping a low profile, probably for political reasons, but also for tactical reasons.
The 18-year-old had previously been charged 11 times with robbery, dangerous threat, scuffle and narcotics offences and had already been convicted three times. In August 2020, he was paroled after 10 months of imprisonment. His subsidiary protection status was revoked due to his criminal acts. He then appealed against deportation to Afghanistan. Yesterday afternoon, he was arrested in the Donaustadt district of Vienna after 5 pm. His suspected accomplice, the 16-year-old Afghan, was also arrested at the same time in the Vienna district of Alsergrund.
On Saturday, the body of 13-year-old Leonie was found on a grass verge in the street Viktor-Kaplan-Straße in the Vienna district of Donaustadt. The dead body of little Leonie had been leaning against a tree when passers-by made the horrific discovery. The girl’s body was covered with haematomas. It quickly became clear that the crime was violent. Soon it was also clear that it had to be a sexual offence.
The police identified the girl by the T-shirt of little Leonie, which had “Live or Die” written on it. Leonie was about 1.60 metres tall, had a slender build, brown, shoulder-length and reddish hair and strikingly light green eyes. After the police published a picture of the T-shirt, Leonie’s parents from Tulln reported recognising the garment. The sad certainty: they identified the body of their dead daughter on Sunday in Vienna. They are currently being cared for by a crisis intervention team, Nehammer explained at the press conference.
Meanwhile, it is also said that Leonie was drugged by the perpetrators. Traces of ecstasy were found in her body during the autopsy. Police chief Pürstl stated that the asylum seekers had used the drugs to make the girl submissive for their sexual assaults. According to the press conference, investigators assume that there are even more perpetrators. The two arrested suspects were arrested thanks to the testimony of an acquaintance of the two Afghans.