‘I’ll chop you off, I’ll slice you to pieces’, a Chechen man ( aged 25) threatened to kill a woman of the same age, whom he didn’t personally know, on a tram in the centre of Linz at around 7.45 a.m. on Friday. The mentally ill man was taken into custody.
The Linz woman had already noticed the man because he had been muttering something . Then the threats started: ‘I’ll chop you all off. The moment will come’, the suspect is alleged to have said.
When schoolchildren got on the bus at Taubenmarkt, the Chechen is said to have threatened them too and said: ‘I don’t care if you’re children.’ He is also said to have threatened: ‘All non-Muslims will be stabbed to death.’
The threatened woman from Linz had nerves of steel and alerted the police. Thanks to her good personal description, the suspect was arrested in Raimundstraße – near the Unionkreuzung intersection. He was unarmed. The suspect was also recognised by the victim.
The unemployed Chechen, who has a criminal record for numerous violent offences, was remanded in custody at the request of the Linz public prosecutor’s office. Due to his mental state, he was placed in the forensic department of the Neuromed Campus in Linz. He is currently being investigated on suspicion of making dangerous threats. According to the police, he had recently attracted attention by talking to himself in public, according to Ulrike Breiteneder from the Linz public prosecutor’s office.