After about two and a half years of meticulous investigative work, the attack on six Viennese friars has been cleared up. As announced in a press conference on Monday, a Croatian citizen has been arrested. The man is homeless. So the motive he called the hatred of the Catholic Church.
On December 27, 2018, six friars were attacked by a perpetrator in the Maria Immaculata church in Strebersdorf. The men were handcuffed, gagged, threatened with a gun and held for hours. In addition, the perpetrator hit and kicked the friars – among other things, he hit with an iron bar. All six victims were seriously injured.
The perpetrator fled with prey at an unknown height. He also took along a pistol locked in a safe in the house of God. An immediate manhunt ran in the sand.
In January 2019, a phantom image of a suspect was published for the first time. Six months later, the Catholic Church offered a reward of 30,000 euros for useful information. But even after a search was made on the ZDF program “Aktenzeichen XY”, the investigators continued to grope in the dark. “Unfortunately, none of this resulted in any information being received,” said Colonel Michael Mimra, head of the investigation service at the LKA Vienna. However, the investigators did not give up. The mysterious case has now been clarified.
DNA hits lead to suspect
In March there was a DNA hit, reported Nina Bussek from the Vienna public prosecutor’s office at the press conference. The suspect with multiple criminal records is a Croat. He was arrested in Zagreb on May 11th. On June 7th, the man was extradited and arrested at the Austrian border. He is in custody. Among other things, the Croatian is accused of serious robbery. The suspect faces five to 15 years imprisonment.
The man gave the motive for the act to hate the Catholic Church. The weapon that the Croatian had stolen from the safe in the act he had buried in a wooded area about 300 meters from the crime scene. It has meanwhile been secured. According to Bussek, the suspect is “extremely cooperative”.