Vienna terror attack: Shooter Kujtim Fejzulai ‘hid in a garage and fired at passers-by’
Austria hails three heroes who saved lives of police officer and elderly lady as terrifying details of Vienna terror attack revealed.
Austria is hailing three heroes who helped save the lives of a police officer and an elderly lady during the height of Monday’s terror attack, in which four people were murdered in a hail of gunfire and 22 injured.
The three who saved lives in the mayhem are Muslim: two Turkish martial arts friends and a Palestinian fast food worker who last year had to resort to the courts to be allowed to buy a house after a local mayor had declared Muslim and Western values to be incompatible.
Austria has declared three days of mourning and a nationwide minute’s silence was held at 12 noon in honour of the victims.
Police are still investigating whether the attacker who was shot dead in a gunfire battle with police acted alone or was a member of a terror cell. They continue to warn Austrians not to go outside.
The dead attacker, Kujtim Fejzulai — a 20-year-old Austrian of North Macedonian and Albanian descent — was released early from prison on terror charges early this year because of his age. Fejzulai was jailed in April 2019 because he wanted to join Islamic State but was released just seven months later.
Isis shared this photo of Kujtim Fejzulai, who had pledged allegiance to Isis in an Instagram post hours before the rampage
— Lizzie Dearden (@lizziedearden) November 3, 2020
It shows him posing with the automatic rifle, handgun and machete he was armed with during the attack pic.twitter.com/ihUsluzxLe
When Fejzulai was stalking the cobbled streets with a military grade assault weapon at 8pm on Monday night, friends Mikail Özen, 25, and Recep Tayyip Gültekin, 21, were parking their car near Schwedenplatz to go to a cafe. They heard gunshots and saw a woman lying on the ground, local Austrian media reported.
Mr Gültekin jumped out of the car to help but became a target himself. His friend said Mr Gültekin avoided serious injury by somersaulting out of the way and scrambling back inside the car.
The two sped to the nearby local police station, described the gunman and events to officers and were preparing to leave when they saw an elderly lady running unsuspectingly towards the gunman’s last location.
They dragged the lady to safety while hearing more shots. At this point a 23-year-old McDonald’s worker, Osama Joda, was with the store manager loading boxes into the restaurant when they saw the attacker.
“He hid in a closed garage exit and fired at passers-by,” Mr Joda told the Austrian daily newspaper Kurier.
“My branch manager was hiding and I got myself to safety behind a concrete bench. When two police officers came to help, the assassin opened fire on them too.
“An officer was hit. So I pulled him behind the concrete bench and tried to stop the bleeding. The assassin fired from about 20 to 30 metres further. There was blood everywhere.’’
While Mr Joda was giving first aid to the officer, Mr Gültekin and Mr Özen tried to carry the wounded policeman to the ambulance.
“Of course there was fear yesterday. I was full of adrenaline. But fear makes you do things that you would otherwise not be able to do,” Mr Özen said.
Interior Minister Karl Nehammer said analysis by police of numerous mobile phone videos from the crime scene had not revealed any evidence of other attackers. But he said it was not yet possible to say exactly how many perpetrators were responsible.
Police, however, have conducted 18 raids and made 14 arrests of friends and associates of Fejzulai.
Austrian chancellor, Sebastian Kurz, said the victims were an older man, an older woman in her 40s, a young male passer-by and a waitress.
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