The youth court service recommends a “detailed psychiatric assessment of the young man’s state of health” in order to be able to initiate any “necessary interventions”.
In a seven-page report available to the APA, the youth court assistance service has dealt in detail with the 19-year-old, who is considered a young adult and is therefore still subject to the provisions of the Youth Court Act (JGG). The authority, which supports the public prosecutors and courts in carrying out their duties, sees several risk factors in the suspected supporter of the radical Islamic terrorist militia “Islamic State” (IS). Apart from his family, he has no social network and abandoned his apprenticeship last July “due to his mental state”. The Federal Army classified him as unfit for his position – due to alleged “immobility”. Until his arrest, the 19-year-old had no regular daily routine. The 19-year-old spent his nights on the Playstation and his days in bed until well into the afternoon.
Cannabis and Lyrica
According to his own statements, the main suspect had been abusing the drug Lyrica, an anti-epileptic drug whose active ingredient is also used for neuropathic pain and anxiety disorders, in addition to cannabis since the beginning of the year. As a result of the drug abuse, the 19-year-old “suffered from paranoia and sometimes heard voices,” according to the report by the youth court assistance service. In order to get rid of his drug consumption and his delusions, he hoped for help from an “Islamic cure” and looked for a ruqyah (a type of exorcism, note) performed by an imam.
The devout Muslim is believed to have become radicalized via social media. On TikTok, however, he not only consumed videos of radical preachers – he also watched cat videos with devotion. Since his imprisonment, the terror suspect has been receiving psychological care and is being cared for by a deradicalization association, to which he is said to have distanced himself from IS and its attacks and assured that he was never a member of IS.
Cannot understand imprisonment
The 19-year-old explicitly denied to the youth court services that he had planned an attack. He said he could “not understand” his detention, and that the chemicals found on him – sulphurous acid, hydrogen peroxide and nail polish remover containing acetone – were “part of every normal household”. The 19-year-old stated that he had not told the truth during the interrogation after his arrest. At the time, he was in a “state of intoxication” from consuming cannabis and Lyrica and “could not think clearly”. He was also “afraid of police violence” and incriminated himself to avoid being hit on the hands with a baton.
Werner Tomanek, the 19-year-old’s defense attorney, will present a private report he commissioned at a press conference in Vienna on Wednesday, which he believes exonerates the main suspect. The expertise of Ingo Wieser – one of the most renowned experts on weapons, ammunition and explosives – concludes that the 19-year-old did not have the capacity to carry out an explosive attack, Tomanek recently told the APA. The terror plans attributed to the young man, who has so far had no criminal record, were not even remotely “close to being carried out”: “The working hypothesis of the DSN (Directorate for State Protection and Intelligence, ed.) is off the table.”
