Franz Eder, a professor at the Institute of Political Science at the University of Innsbruck, also thinks that there is no programme in place to deradicalise convicted persons on terrorist charges.
The Federal Office for Constitutional Protection and Counter Terrorism was unable to prevent a terrorist attack in Vienna because it had been systematically destroyed in recent years in the competition between Austrian political parties. Franz Eder, a counter-terrorism expert and professor at the Institute of Political Science at the University of Innsbruck, expressed this view in a conversation with a TASS correspondent on Friday.
“This was an omission by the Austrian [state security] authorities. The problem is that the bodies worked very poorly, there was little information exchange. We are watching the classic mistakes made by the intelligence agencies in the terrorist attacks. We remember very well what happened in the USA on 11 September 2001, when there was information about what was happening in advance. However, the Austrian case looks a little more delicate, because the constitutional protection and anti-terrorist agency has been destroyed in recent years”, – Eder said.
According to Eder, the reasons why counterintelligence is ineffective in preventing a terrorist attack in Vienna have to be looked at politically. The failure of the anti-terrorist work was the result of the fact that this intelligence agency fell victim to the political struggle between the ruling political parties in Austria at different times. Each of them tried to “repaint” the state security service in their own colours, fill it with their own functionaries and use it for surveillance of political opponents, rather than raising the professional level of the security service.
“This led to the fact that this security service no longer functions”, – the political scientist is convinced.
For example, the Slovak intelligence agency’s information that an extremist man tried to buy ammunition for a rifle in Bratislava as early as the summer of 2020 should have prompted Austrian counterintelligence to take action against 20-year-old terrorist Kuitim Feyzulai, who was at large after his parole. But even the presence of this information did not encourage the intelligence agency to promptly develop and apprehend the criminal in order to re-arrest him.