What we know about the man who killed four in Vienna shooting spree

VIENNA, Nov 4- Dressed in a black shirt and cap, with an automatic rifle, a handgun and a machete in hand, 20- year-old Kujtim Fejzulai looked into the camera for the last photo he posted of himself on Instagram before setting off on a killing spree in Vienna. On Monday he killed four people and injured 22 in what was the deadliest attack in Austria’s capital for decades,…

By Kirsti Knolle

VIENNA, Nov 4 (Reuters) – Dressed in a black shirt and cap,with an automatic rifle, a handgun and a machete in hand,20-year-old Kujtim Fejzulai looked into the camera for the lastphoto he posted of himself on Instagram before setting off on akilling spree in Vienna.

On Monday he killed four people and injured 22 in what wasthe deadliest attack in Austria’s capital for decades, movingthrough Vienna’s inner city and shooting at passers-by for nineminutes from about 8 p.m., until he was shot dead by police.

According to witnesses, he at one point turned back to shootone of his victims a second time.

Fejzulai, who Austrian Interior Minister Karl Nehammer saidwas an “Islamist terrorist”, was born on the southern fringes ofVienna to Macedonian parents – he a gardener and she a shopassistant – on June 24, 2000, according to court documents seenby Austrian weekly Profil and confirmed by a court spokeswoman.

“Since puberty, the accused had massive problems at home,which also led to exposure to violence,” the 2019 documentssaid.

By the time he was 18, he had drawn the attention ofAustria’s domestic intelligence agency, becoming known as afollower of jihadist ideology.

Fejzulai attempted to cross the border from Turkey intoSyria in 2018 but was caught and deported to his native Austria,the country’s security chief Franz Ruf said on Wednesday.

The Vienna criminal court sentenced Fejzulai to 22 months inprison in April 2019 for being a member of a terroristorganisation and for spreading propaganda.

Due to his young age, he had to serve only a third of thesentence and was released in December 2019.

The court had found that Fejzulai, a soccer fan, appeared tobe “open-minded and accessible”, “certainly reflective andcognitively well structured”.

Little is known about his life after that, except that hetook part in a de-radicalisation programme, which was stillongoing when he went on his killing spree.

Nikolaus Rast, the lawyer who represented Fejzulai duringthat trial, said he was shocked by news of the attack, saying hewould have never thought the young man was able to commit suchviolence.

He said he remembered his client as “a lost soul… a littleboy, who is looking for his place in society, who doesn’t knowwhere to go”. Rast added that he had the impression Fejzulai hadfound his way back to “the true values of society”.

“But obviously he managed to fool us all,” Rast said.

(Additional reporting by Sabine SieboldEditing by Mark Heinrich)