Syrian delivery driver Alaaeddin Alhalabi, 42, stopped the knifeman by ramming his car into him after he witnessed members of the public being stabbed – allowing cops to quickly catch and arrest the killer
A food delivery driver has been praised a ‘hero’ for stopping a mass stabbing in Austria which left a 14-year-old boy dead and five others wounded.
State governor Peter Kaiser thanked the Syrian driver, 42-year-old Alaaeddin Alhalabi, who was out working for a food delivery company when he witnessed the frenzied attack and rammed his car into the knifeman. Police said the move allowed the two female officers on scene to catch the killer and arrest him in the southern city of Villach on Saturday afternoon.
“This shows how closely terrorist evil but also human good can be united in one and the same nationality,” Mr Kaiser said. Officers identified the suspect as a 23-year-old Syrian asylum seeker who was detained at the scene in the city’s town centre, and remains in custody where he is being questioned.
The victims included two 15-year-old boys and three men aged 28, 32 and 36, all of whom were attacked with a folding knife. Four of them are being treated in hospital and one is receiving care for minor injuries.
In a press conference held at 11am local time on Sunday, authorities called the incident an “Islamist attack with IS links by an attacker who, according to the investigations so far, was obviously radicalised online, via the internet, within a very short space of time. So those in a position of responsibility, the police, the authorities, must draw the necessary conclusions from that.”
According to police, IS flags were discovered on the walls of the suspect’s apartment during a search. Austria’s interior minister Gerhard Karner said he felt “anger about an Islamist attacker who indiscriminately stabbed innocent people here in this city”.
Austria’s president Alexander Van der Bellen branded the attack “horrific”, and wrote on X that “no words can undo the suffering, the horror, the fear”. Officers are still trying to establish whether the suspect acted on his own. Following the incident, the Free Syrian Community of Austria expressed its deepest condolences to the victims’ families and said “anyone who causes strife does not represent Syrians”.
In a statement on Facebook, it wrote: “We all had to flee Syria, our home country, because we were no longer safe there – no-one left their country voluntarily. We are grateful to have found asylum and protection in Austria. Finally, we would like to emphasise: Anyone who causes strife and disturbs the peace of society does not represent the Syrians who have sought and received protection here.”