The Austrian Ministry of the Interior reported today that it prevented a possible jihadist attack against the LGTBI Pride parade that was held on Saturday in Vienna and was attended by more than 300,000 people.
Three young people of Austrian nationality were arrested before the start of the demonstration on suspicion that they were planning an attack “with knives or with a motor vehicle” against those attending the protest march for LGBTI rights.
The suspects, aged 14, 17 and 20, were arrested before the march, which was attended by around 300,000 people and which blocked off much of the center of the Austrian capital.
“At no time was there a specific danger to the participants in the march,” Omar Haijawi-Pirchner, head of the Ministry’s Directorate for State Protection and Intelligence Services, told a press conference.
Anti-terror forces had prior knowledge of the alleged plans of the suspects, who had been radicalized online and had sympathies for the Islamic State (IS) terror group.
Once these plans became known, the detainees, of Bosnian and Chechen origin, were kept under “constant surveillance”, arrested before the march and their homes subjected to a search that provided various evidence, including bladed weapons, such as a saber, according to Haijawi-Pirchner.
The Austrian authorities have indications that other weapons may have been purchased abroad as well.
The police decided to act as the three had taken preparatory actions for an attack in Vienna, “possibly against the Pride parade.”
One of the suspects was already known to the police in connection with previous terrorist activities. The arrests occurred by order of the Sankt Pölten City Prosecutor’s Office and the three suspects are in a prison in that town, located about 65 kilometers from Vienna.
Parade organizers were not informed of what had happened so as not to cause panic and because there were no other dangers once the suspects were detained, according to Haijawi-Pirchner.
