The perpetrator of a stabbing attack on Saturday in the southern Austrian town of Villach in which a teenage boy was killed was a suspected Islamist who was radicalized online, Interior Minister Gerhard Karner said on Sunday.
Police have identified the perpetrator of the attack as a 23-year-old Syrian asylum seeker. Speaking at a press conference, Karner said the stabbing rampage, in which five people were also injured, was linked to Islamic State.
The stabbing suspect was arrested yesterday afternoon after killing a 14-year-old boy and wounding five others. Witnesses said he grabbed a knife and stabbed passersby at random in the heart of the city. In a photo after his arrest, which shocked Europe, he is seen smiling broadly.
Two of the five injured are hospitalized in serious condition. A police spokesman said that one of the injured is a Turkish citizen and the rest hold Austrian citizenship.
"This is an Islamist attack with links to ISIS," Austrian Interior Minister Gerhard Kerner said Sunday afternoon. In a statement to the media, he said that the Syrian terrorist had been radicalized online "in a short time" and was not known to the authorities.
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The attack in Austria came two days after the Munich truck attack , carried out by an Afghan asylum seeker. On Saturday, a two-year-old toddler and her 37-year-old mother died from their injuries.
Peter Kaiser, governor of the Carinthia region where the city of Villach is located, said of the incident: "The consequences for this shocking atrocity must be severe. I have always said clearly and unequivocally: Those who live in Carinthia, and in Austria, must respect the law and obey our laws and values."