In the early morning hours of November 9, 2020, the Austrian executive went on a large-scale operation. Around 960 officers stormed homes, businesses and clubs across Germany at the same time. The then Interior Minister Karl Nehammer (VP) then spoke on social media of a “decisive blow against the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas in Austria”.
“Operation Luxor” – that was the name of the second largest police operation in the history of the Second Republic. The focus was on 106 suspects, who were accused of membership in a terrorist group and/or a criminal organization as well as terrorist financing and money laundering. Murder, kidnapping, bomb attacks – all of this was planned to establish Islamic enclaves in Europe.
But what is left, 1,190 days after the raids, which mainly targeted private individuals of the Muslim faith?
No charges
None of the accused were ever taken into custody, let alone put in the dock. Even the investigation against a man who was then described as the “leading Muslim Brotherhood in Austria” was stopped last year at the behest of the Graz Higher Regional Court. In a statement from the Higher Regional Court, criticism of the investigators’ approach was not spared. Essential information for Operation Luxor surrounding a “leadership circle” would come from a whistleblower whose statements were mere hearsay.
A large part of the house searches on November 9th have now been classified as unlawful. In most cases the evidence was too thin for the courts, in others it was even considered non-existent. The investigation files, for which target persons were observed for a total of 21,000 hours before access, revealed “no substrate” that would confirm the suspicion. This is also why the proceedings against the majority of the accused were discontinued.
This is also the case with the “Rahma Austria” association, an aid organization that operates worldwide. Rahma was accused of financing the terrorist organization Hamas using donations – “without result,” as lawyer Andreas Schweitzer reported at a press conference on Monday, in which he also made serious allegations against the judiciary. Despite the discontinued proceedings, the Graz public prosecutor’s office would continue to investigate through the back door. Recently, more than 700 donors were questioned as witnesses to possible property and financial crimes. This is just a pretext “to further investigate the suspicion of terrorism.” The witnesses were “suggested” that they had financed terrorism with their donations.
“Like criminals or terrorists”
Of course, the prosecution sees things differently. During the original audit, irregularities in the accounting were discovered. These would be sufficient to investigate suspicions of breach of trust and tax evasion.
According to club chairman Taher Hassan, the ongoing investigations have caused damage to the company’s image and “drastically reduced” donations. “We were presented in the media as if we were criminals or terrorists.”
