A popular jury in Austria sentenced this Wednesday to life imprisonment a 24-year-old Syrian citizen who in February 2025 murdered a 14-year-old teenager on behalf of the jihadist group Islamic State (ISIS), after being radicalized on the social network TikTok. The attacker seriously injured five other people with stab wounds in the center of the southern city of Villach before a Syrian working to deliver food ran over him and prevented him from attacking more people.
The convicted man had arrived in Austria in 2020 and received asylum arguing that in his country, then immersed in a civil war, his life was in danger. The man has Kurdish roots and it was the militias of this ethnic group that constituted the main strike force against the Islamic State in Syria. According to the Prosecutor’s Office, from 2024 He began to radicalize quickly through videos of the Islamic State on TikTok. His brother, with whom he lived, claimed not to have noticed this process.
Two days before his attack, the young man recorded a message swearing allegiance to that jihadist group and announcing an attack against the “immoral infidels,” while displaying the ten-centimeter-bladed knife with which he committed the crime. The Prosecutor’s Office accused him of murder, attempted murder in five cases and terrorism.
In his initial statement to the Police after being arrested, the now convicted man stated that his intention was to kill more people and that he only regretted not having died. This testimony was corroborated today in the trial, according to the Austrian media.
The Prosecutor’s Office has argued that the convicted man has not shown any remorse, an opinion with which the judge presiding over the court has agreed. The convicted man indicated that he does not intend to appeal the sentence.
https://elpais.com/internacional/2026-05-27/cadena-perpetua-para-un-yihadista-que-mato-a-un-menor-en-austria-en-nombre-del-isis.html
