Numerous offenses

Extortion of protection money: Prison for gang of youths

The two heads of the protection money gang(Bild: Bartel Gerhard)

The trial against a gang of youths who allegedly carried out three arson attacks on a cell phone store in Meidling and numerous other crimes in connection with racketeering in September last year came to an end on Friday at the Vienna Regional Court. The main defendants, aged 17 and 19, were sentenced to unconditional prison terms of four and five years respectively.

The two could face further proceedings. "The initiation of proceedings for a terrorist organization is currently being examined," said Nina Bussek, spokeswoman for the public prosecutor's office.

Two 16-year-olds were given one and two years' unconditional imprisonment respectively, while a 21-year-old received two and a half years. Another 16-year-old and a 15-year-old received partial prison sentences. The older one received two years, of which eight months were unconditional, the 15-year-old 18 months, of which six months were unconditional. Two other 15-year-olds received four and 15 months respectively.

A total of ten defendants
Since mid-May, a total of ten boys between the ages of 14 and 21 have had to stand trial before a panel of lay judges. Six of them were in custody until the end, one stayed away from the trial. The gang was accused of arson, serious extortion, attempted intentional grievous bodily harm, multiple grievous bodily harm, serious damage to property, criminal association and criminal conspiracy. Aggravated robbery, robbery and aggravated theft were also incriminated, with machetes and knives being used as weapons in the robbery.

Explosives in the children's room
The 17-year-old had bought banned ball bombs in the Czech Republic. Together with an accomplice, he is said to have used them in his children's room and later in the premises of a mosque and built an explosive device weighing 2.3 kilograms at home. According to the indictment, a threatening letter against the cell phone store owner was also written in the mosque, with a cartridge matching an AK-47 assault rifle enclosed.

Cell phone store owner terrorized
Since 8 September 2023, the defendants had terrorized the cell phone store owner in Steinbauergasse by first blowing up the store's façade with three firecrackers. This resulted in damage of well over 5,000 euros and the windows in neighboring buildings were broken. Because the store owner, who was supposed to pay the gang 25,000 euros, did not respond to their demand, a Molotov cocktail was thrown into the store on September 19.

The scenes recorded by a surveillance camera showed how a masked youth threw the incendiary bottle through the open entrance door into the store, where the store owner and his wife were staying. When the bottle burst on the floor and a jet of flame shot upwards, the woman ran out of the store in panic while her husband contained the flames with a fire extinguisher.

Masked robbery
In the meantime, four defendants had committed a robbery at the cell phone store, three of them wearing masks. The store was demolished and literally beaten to pieces, which was also captured on the surveillance camera.