After weeks of observation by the police, Elias H., a 16-year-old Viennese with Egyptian origins, was arrested for posing with weapons on social media and apparently sympathising with radical Islamists. eXXpress learned about the large number of charges against the teenager and how dangerous he could actually be.
After the arrest of a 16-year-old youth from Vienna, who not only posted videos of himself on the internet showing him posing with firearms, but is also said to have “strong radical Islamist tendencies” (eXXpress reported), the entire Viennese public is asking themselves: Who is this youth and how dangerous is he really? Could his arrest perhaps have prevented something worse?
The memories of the attack in Vienna in November 2020 are still fresh, only last week there was a terrible rampage at the university in Heidelberg, Germany – here it came to light that the perpetrator, Nikolai G., who was only 18 years old, had bought his weapons in Vienna (eXXpress also reported here). As a result, a debate about the weapons law in Austria came up, the attention around teenage perpetrators is still topical. The eXXpress was able to get first background information on the teenager who made headlines all over Austria on Saturday morning.
Elias H. has Egyptian origins, was born in Vienna and has lived in the federal capital all his life. According to police reports, the youth recorded and published several videos in which he was seen posing with and firing what he thought was a handgun. The videos do not show whether the weapon is a handgun or not. Not only in residential rooms, but also in a public park, the teenager repeatedly carried the gun and fired it uncontrollably in one video.
On one occasion, he also fired a gun several times into the air in a park in a densely populated area in the immediate vicinity of a residential complex, and once he fired from a flat in the direction of a house opposite and also videotaped himself doing so. The Directorate for State Protection and Intelligence (DSN) classifies the content of the videos as “questionable”, Elias H. is expecting multiple charges for these offences – even if it was a alarm pistol – according to section 89 of the Criminal Code, because of endangering the physical safety of others.
In some of the videos he uploaded to Instagram, Elias H. talked about buying ammunition – “nine-millimetre bullets”. The handguns, it later emerged, were “deceptively genuine-looking alarm pistols”, the interior ministry said on Saturday.
This footage had already been reported and initial investigations initiated when the boy uploaded further videos on New Year’s Eve. In one of them, he can be seen with a friend blowing up a chewing gum vending machine with pyrotechnics. In another video, he points a gun at a group of people standing in the distance, who do not notice anything.
At that time, the identity of Elias H. was not yet known, but that quickly became clear. The DSN, the Fünfhaus City Police Department and the Western Branch of the Provincial Criminal Investigation Office were quickly able to track H. down: The police stopped him and two friends on New Year’s Day in a stolen white station wagon with stolen licence plates in Rudolfsheim-Fünfhaus. “The accused youth was carrying a loaded alarm pistol. Further stolen licence plates were found in the boot of the vehicle. In addition, the driver of the vehicle was impaired by narcotic drugs,” said BMI spokesman Harald Sörös.
The DSN, WEGA and police dog unit then conducted a house search at Elias H.’s home. A second alarm pistol including ammunition, a combat knife, a mobile phone and other electronic data carriers were seized. The following night, he posted a video – recorded on a foreign device – in which he asked all his friends to “delete the chats with him”.
“Currently, the forensic evaluation of the seized data carriers and the investigation of possible radical Islamist connections as well as the investigation of further suspects is underway,” said Sörös. The youth did not cooperate and refused to hand over his passwords.
Furthermore, there are indications “that the youth at least sympathises with Islamist ideology”. The investigators suspect “Islamist tendencies”, among other things, because of the appearance of the boy in his videos, partly wearing “Islamic garments”, but also because he followed relevant persons on the internet. In any case, the accused had “a dangerous affinity to firearms”.
“Extremist activities have no place in our democratic society,” emphasised Interior Minister Gerhard Karner ( Austrian People’s Party) in a statement. “The new Directorate for State Protection and Intelligence will continue to be vigilant here and consistently combat every form of Islamist activity, anti-Semitism and right-wing extremism,” Karner said.
https://exxpress.at/folgte-radikalen-islamisten-auf-instagram-so-gefaehrlich-war-elias-h-16/