An Afghan migrant who slaughtered three prostitutes in Vienna last week, including beheading two of them, cited the Quran and Jihad as a motivation for his attack.
“Prostitutes are under the guise of Satan,” said Ebadullah A. while confessing his crime during the police interrogation. “I read in the Quran that I should engage in jihad.”
The case, which has shocked Austria, is turning into another high-profile crime involving a foreigner. The cruel attack saw Ebadullah A. walk into an Asian massage parlor close to closing time on Feb. 24, where three women refused to have sex with him. He flew into a rage and began stabbing the women with knives he had brought with him to the clandestine brothel. Investigators said they were greeted with a horror scene when they arrived. The three women were stabbed a total of 98 times, making it difficult for investigators to identify them.
Two of the three women were completely beheaded in the attack. Investigators say the man bought his knives at a supermarket shortly before committing the triple homicide.
Police arrested the man with these murder weapons on his person; they were forced to use a taser to disarm him.
A fourth employee at the scene, who heard her fellow co-workers being murdered, was able to escape the brothel but is reportedly traumatized by the incident and undergoing psychiatric treatment.
Lawyer defends his client
Ebadullah A.’s lawyer is asking the courts to have compassion on his client, saying “he is a broken soul, a pitiful sick man.”
“My client is convinced that the knife was wielded by magic and sorcery – he lives in a mythical world,” he told Austrian publication Heute.at.
Immediate deportation
The Freedom Party of Austria, which is currently the country’s most popular party, according to polling, is calling for the suspect to be deported immediately.
“This new act of bloodshed against women by people who have nothing to do with our Western culture, who can live out their hatred of women with us (in Austria) is further sad evidence of the failure of the ÖVP interior ministers,” said FPÖ security spokesman Hannes Amesbauer. “It is also incomprehensible that this suspected murderer should now be provided with the best possible care in Austria’s (…) cozy justice system with organic menus and private medical treatment.”
Amesbauer said that Austria will only be safe if FPÖ leader Herbert Kickl is elected as chancellor, with political analysts saying this is actually the most likely outcome based on current polling numbers.
“Austria certainly cannot be the melting pot of political Islam, even if the ÖVP and the Greens would like it to be. But deportation and ‘imprisonment at home’ will only happen with People’s Chancellor Herbert Kickl and a ‘Fortress Austria’ involving our 23-point package of measures,” Amesbauer continued.
Other FPÖ politicians also sniped at the ruling government, with Vienna’s Maximilian Weinziert saying, “After this incident, however, one has to ask oneself what actually distinguishes Vienna from Kabul. These conditions are intolerable.”