Autopsy results so far indicated that the victim was drugged to make her sexually compliant. The girl was abused and suffocated, said the Vienna police chief Gerhard Pürstl. Whether there are other suspects involved, is currently still being examined. The girl’s body was found early on Saturday morning on a strip of grass in the Austrian capital. The victim knew the alleged perpetrators.
Interior Minister Karl Nehammer (ÖVP) announced that if the two asylum seekers were the perpetrators, they would be deported to Afghanistan. The older of the two alleged murderers has already lost his protection status due to a criminal record. However, proceedings are currently still ongoing because he has appealed against it.
During the press conference, an ORF journalist asked whether Austrian society had not taken enough care of the “traumatized Afghans” but Nehammer firmly rejected the allegations contained in the question.
In view of this fact, FPÖ chairman Herbert Kickl called for the asylum procedure to be terminated immediately if refugees become criminals. At the same time, their protection status should be revoked and deportation initiated for any form of crime, he said, according to the APA news agency.
Details about the alleged Afghan perpetrators included information that the third suspect had already clashed with the law several times, reported the Kronen Zeitung. He was arrested on Wednesday evening.
The 23-year-old asylum seeker has been reported five times since 2018, including for drug trafficking. In May of last year, he was sentenced to two years in prison for assault and sexual assault. However, he was released because of the pre-trial detention he had already served.
Since deportation proceedings were in progress against him, he went into hiding at the time. When the proceedings were discontinued, he registered a residence again and lived there unperturbed. The investigators are now looking for a fourth suspicious Afghan. He is also known to the police.