Another alarm about Jehovah’s Witnesses in Styria: On Friday morning, a car blew up in Zettling, south of Graz. No one was injured, but the car belonged to a member of the Styrian religious community. According to the police, a connection with the current investigation into Jehovah’s Witnesses cannot be ruled out. Now the specially set up special commission is investigating.
In the early hours of the morning, the residents of Zettling were woken from their sleep. A loud bang was heard and suddenly a car was on fire. “Some kind of explosion on the vehicle probably caused the small car and an adjacent Thujenhecke to catch fire,” says the Styria police. Memories of attacks come back. However, the Thujenhecke in question probably does not belong to just any house. Initial police investigations identified a member of Jehovah’s Witnesses south of Graz as the owner of the car parked in the driveway. The man had parked it the evening before – unaware of the car bomb that was attached to it. Horror memories are now coming back to the religious community: it was only at the end of March that a functioning explosive device was found in front of the Kingdom Hall in Kalsdorf, and the previous year several bombs went off in Leibnitz in the air. “A connection can be assumed,” says the police. At the moment it is assumed that there was an explosive device. Criminal investigators carried out extensive forensic investigations at the crime scene. The Cobra defusing service and an explosives detection dog were also on site. The “Michael” special commission at the State Office for State Security and Combating Extremism has taken over the investigation. Fortunately, no one was injured this time either. Around 15 firefighters from the Zettling fire department were able to quickly bring the fire under control. However, the car on the house’s gravel driveway was a total loss with an unknown amount of damage. The wreckage was removed in the early afternoon. The investigation into the cause of the fire and possible perpetrators is now once again in full swing.
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