News from Austria

Police release 20 Chechens after mass arrests in Vienna

Police patrolling the Donauinsel.

Austrian police have released 20 out of 22 men of Chechen origin who were arrested with weapons on them on Friday evening in Vienna, according to the Austria Press Agency.

A case was opened against the 22 men on suspicion of involvement in a criminal gang. Twenty men were released on condition they do not leave the city. Two are still in custody.

On Friday, police detained 22 men of Chechen origin at Donauinselplatz in the district of Floridsdorf, after locals noticed they were acting suspiciously and called the police.

Police seized a handgun, a knife, and a submachine gun with a full magazine. One more handgun was found on Saturday after police searched ten apartments.

The Vienna police said the men were detained on suspicion of involvement in criminal activities and were probably from rival gangs, but that they did not pose a terrorist threat.

Sixteen out of the 22 detained men have been granted asylum by Austria, four are asylum seekers, and two of the men had had their asylum claims rejected.

Isn't it just about compulsory for Chechens to be in criminal gangs?

It seems to be all the rage you know.

Vienna's dead panda's final journey.

Long Hui, a giant panda feted for having fathered five cubs in captivity and who succumbed to a stomach tumour in December, will be stuffed and returned to China for posterity, Vienna's Schönbrunn Zoo said on Tuesday.

"Following a request by our Chinese partner, the body of Long Hui will be stuffed and returned to China in early summer 2018," the zoo said.

The zoo added it had tasked taxidermist Peter Morass with the job. "It's quite unusual to stuff a panda -- but I'm an old hand and I'll manage it," Morass told Austria's APA news agency.

Long Hui's skin and bones have been frozen pending the tanning of the skin, which will then be sewn around a panda-shaped model. The bones are to be preserved separately.

Long Hui, who died aged 16 on December 9th, arrived in the Austrian capital in 2003 and he and his companion Yang Yang thrilled zoo-goers as their frolicking in captivity produced five healthy offspring.

Their births were a cause of celebration for fans of the species whose breeding programs are notoriously difficult, not least owing to the single and very short annual reproductive cycle in the female. In addition, around half of newborn cubs do not survive infancy.

Last August, Long Hui and Yang Yang welcomed twins into the world -- Fu Feng (Happy Phoenix) and Fu Ban (Happy Companion), who turned six months old on Tuesday.

Vienna's Schönbrunn zoo has a deal with Beijing to hand back Fu Feng and Fu Ban once they turn two. The twins' brothers - Fu Long, Fu Hu and Fu Bao - born respectively in 2007, 2010 and 2013, have already been sent to China.

Aw.

Supermarket manager embezzled €20,000 'for his cat'.



The former branch manager of a supermarket in the Austrian capital Vienna has received a six month probationary sentence for embezzling €20,000. He said he urgently needed the money to be able to take care of his cat.

The 35-year-old man told Vienna’s regional court that he has a pure breed cat and that “I once had to pay €1,200 for it to have an operation”. He also used the stolen money to pay monthly instalments for his life insurance.

He was able to steal the money over a longer period of time by faking receipts for returned goods or pretending that expensive bottles of alcohol such as whiskey or champagne had been broken in the store. He also deceived his employees by tricking them into thinking the balance in the tills at the end of the day was incorrect - and often making them pay the difference out of their own pockets.

He managed to take a total of €1,200 from one employee, and €200 from another. He especially took advantage of a naive young apprentice, who found that he was always missing large sums of money from the till - and was once forced to pay back his entire monthly income to make up the balance.

The boy didn’t realise that as an apprentice he could not legally be held responsible for the till deficit, and that it was illegal for the man to demand him to hand over his earnings. He only found out he had been duped when he was informed of the law at his vocational college, and his father then contacted the worker’s council.

The supermarket sacked the store manager in August 2016 after hearing what had been going on and he was charged with embezzlement. He has been ordered by the court to repay the money he owes to the injured parties.

Well, vets' bills can mount up......

Teen troublemaker arrested after death threats against foreign minister.

A Chechen teenager has been arrested by special forces police in Vienna after making death threats on social media sites against the Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz.

The 17-year-old made headlines last year after he and a group of teenagers filmed themselves repeatedly hitting a 15-year-old girl in the face and posted the shocking video on Facebook. The girl had to be treated in hospital for serious facial injuries including a fractured jaw. The Chechen youth later apologised to the girl, posting a letter to her on Facebook.

The youth was active on Facebook last week, posting abusive comments about Kurz after the government announced its plan to ban Muslim women from wearing the full-face veil in public. The 17-year-old described Kurz as the “son of a whore” and threatened to kill him.

Police spokesman Paul Eidenberger told the Krone newspaper that the youth was arrested early on Thursday morning, after armed police stormed his apartment. However, he did not confirm the reason for the arrest and refused to give any further details - apart from saying that the 17-year-old will be questioned on Thursday and the prosecutor will then decide whether he should be kept in police custody.

What is it about Chechens?

Austrian defence minister seeks new alliance to protect borders.

Austria’s Defence Minister Hans Peter Doskozil (SPÖ) has said he wants to forge a new military alliance and strengthen cooperation with countries along the so-called “Balkan route” to prevent migrants and refugees crossing Austria's border illegally.

"The western Balkan route is still not as closed as it should be," Doskozil told the German newspaper Welt. There are "unfortunately still people-smuggling networks which are very active and a significant number of migrants", he added.

He said that the EU’s deal with Turkey to tackle the migrant crisis is no longer reliable and that “we must be prepared in case the government in Ankara opens the floodgates again”.

According to Doskozil between 500 and 1,000 refugees and migrants are arriving in Austria every week. He said Austria is now cooperating closely with 15 other countries along the Balkan route as well as the Visegrad group (the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia).

"We are currently working on legislative amendments that would allow the government to deploy soldiers abroad, not just for humanitarian reasons," he said, adding that Austrian troops could be sent within and outside the EU to help protect borders if necessary.

Doskozil said that the number of irregular migrants who are currently living within the EU illegally is "too high".

EU leaders recently agreed on a plan to reduce the flow of migrants from Libya. Libya's UN-backed government will receive €200m, including funding to reinforce its coastguard.

In 2015 a record 90,000 people applied for asylum in Austria after hundreds of thousands of migrants transited the country, bound for Germany and elsewhere.

Doskozil said that the number of irregular migrants who are currently living within the EU illegally is "too high".

Thank Merkel, for letting them just walk into Europe.

Calling a police officer 'dude' is a punishable offence in Austria.

An Austrian football fan learnt the hard way that it’s not the done thing to be too familiar with a police officer.

According to a federal court, calling a policeman ‘Oida', an Austrian/Bavarian dialect word which roughly translates as ‘dude’ or ‘man’, is a punishable offence.

The incident occurred at a football stadium in Pasching in Upper Austria. The fan in question had hung a banner in front of the stadium, and a police officer told him to take it down. The fan replied “let it go, dude”. The officer filed a report, saying that the man had spoken to him disrespectfully, and he was ordered to pay a fine of €100 by the local district authority.

The fan contested the fine, and took the case to the Regional Court of Appeal, arguing that ‘Oida’ is a normal and acceptable slang word used by young people. The court looked into the origins of the word ‘Oida’ and found that it comes from the Viennese word ‘Hawara’, meaning friend or crony. It ruled that the word is not appropriate to use when speaking to a police officer, as the police are not friends or cronies of the general public.

The court did not say whether addressing an officer with the Viennese word ‘Kieberer’, a slang word used to describe a policeman, is also a punishable offence.

The court said that the use of such words depends on the situation, and that what is inappropriate in one situation could be fine in another. However, the judge said that in the case in question the choice of words was inappropriate. He ruled that the man be given a warning, and said that as the offence was only minor the €100 fine should be dropped.

It's actually hard to say which is dafter, wasting court time and money on this, or calling a policeman 'Dude' in the first place...

A simple, It's 'Officer' to you! might have been a good idea?

Brain surgeon sues Austrian Airlines over folding-tray finger injury.

An Australian brain surgeon whose little finger got stuck in an Austrian Airline plane's fold-out tray table is suing over his resulting physical and psychological injuries.

Dr David Walker says he was flying with Austrian Airlines from Brisbane to Manchester in the UK, via Bangkok and Vienna in July 2016, when his finger was injured by a collapsing tray table.

The neurosurgeon says the cabin crew folded out the table tray from his armrest before serving an in-flight meal during the Bangkok to Vienna leg of his trip. But the cabin crew did not return to retract his table tray after the meal, which stopped Dr Walker from reclining his business class seat. When he attempted to retract the tray himself, he said it "malfunctioned" and "snapped back suddenly without warning".

"The fifth finger on the right hand of the Applicant became jammed in between two of the parts of the horizontal tray-table resulting in severe pain and injury," the statement of claim says.

With the help of his son, he was able to pull his finger out from the fold-out tray after several seconds.

"Due to the severe pain and realisation of the injury to the finger, the Applicant lost consciousness briefly," the statement of claim continues.

Dr Walker claims he suffered a fracture to the finger, as well as soft tissue injuries and trauma to the nail bed. He says he has been left with a permanent disability and has suffered anxiety and depression.

The claim says Dr Walker has lost and will continue to lose income as a result of his physical and mental injuries, and that he will face future medical expenses.

A spokesman for Austrian Airlines, Wilhelm Baldia, said on Thursday that the case is currently being examined by the airline's legal department and that he is not able to comment in more detail on the case at present. He did say, however, that an internal investigation had shown that Dr Walker had not approached the crew after the incident.

He added that it is not a requirement that the tray-tables in business class be retracted by a member of the crew. "There is no specific procedure," he said. "Passengers often want to use the table later on, for example for their laptop. The crew is of course happy to help with any problems with folding or unfolding the table."

Hmmmm.......

Hitler doppelgänger spotted in Nazi dictator's birthplace.

Austrian authorities are investigating reports of a man dressed as Adolf Hitler who has been sighted in public in the Nazi dictator's birthplace.

"I have often seen this gentlemen in Braunau and wonder if this means something," the Oberösterreichische Nachrichten paper cited a local resident as saying on his Facebook page, alongside a picture of a man who resembled Hitler. He appears with the distinctive moustache, haircut and clothing. Prosecutors have confirmed the report.

Hitler was born in Braunau am Inn, then part of Austria-Hungary, in 1889.

The doppelgänger, estimated to be 25 to 30 years old, was last seen in a local bookstore browsing through magazines about World War Two.

Local media reports say that he had identified himself in a local bar as ‘Harald Hitler’, and was overheard ordering an “Austrian mineral water”. He is thought to have recently moved to Braunau from the south of Austria.

He has also been spotted allowing tourists to take ‘selfie’ photographs with him in front of the house where Hitler was born.

Glorifying Hitler or the Nazis is a crime in Austria.

Sounds to me like some kind of 'performance art' - or a wind-up to cause Outrage!

And isn't he a bit on the chubby side?

Hitler lookalike arrested in Austria.

Austrian police arrested an Adolf Hitler lookalike Monday after he was spotted wandering around the Nazi dictator's hometown sporting his infamous moustache and side parting, a spokesman said.

The 25-year-old Austrian national was detained in his flat in the quaint northern town of Braunau am Inn where the Fuehrer was born on April 20, 1889.

The man, who reportedly called himself "Harald Hitler", was arrested under a 1947 Austrian law which made it illegal to promote Nazi ideology.

"It was obvious that he glorified Hitler," police spokesman David Furtner told AFP.

Authorities became aware of his existence after photos emerged on social media of the man posing outside Hitler's actual birth house, a large yellow corner house in the town's historic centre.

Other snaps showed him standing in a Braunau pub dressed in traditional garb including a loden jacket and lederhosen.

According to local media reports, the copycat introduced himself to patrons as "Harald Hitler" and insisted on being served "Austrian mineral water".

The suspect who offered no resistance during his arrest had moved to Braunau in mid-January, police said.

The case once again puts the spotlight on Braunau, a town of 17,000 on the German border which has repeatedly made headlines because of its historical ties to Hitler.

Most recently it drew attention after the government in December expropriated the dilapidated building where Hitler came into the world.

The move followed years of bitter wrangling with owner Gerlinde Pommer who had been renting the premises to the interior ministry since the 1970s and refused to sell or carry out essential renovation works.

Man finds €269,500 in his cellar - and hands it to the police.

A man who recently moved into a rented apartment in the Austrian town of Graz was astonished when he stumbled on a cardboard box containing six neat bundles of €500 notes in the cellar. The cash totalled €269,500.

The 42-year-old man surmised that the money may be connected to criminal activities, and promptly informed the police.

Graz police have confirmed that the money is genuine, but declined to comment on the ongoing investigation.

According to Austrian law, somebody who finds lost items is entitled to a "finder's fee" from its owner. The man would be entitled to ten percent of the money up to €2,000, and another five percent of the money beyond that amount.

Well, better 10% than a bullet courtesy of the Chechen mafia......

Strauss’s Blue Danube keeps waltzing at 150.

The bronze monument of Johann Strauss in Vienna's Stadtpark.

Born out of defeat, initially not that popular and dedicated to a river that's more greeny-grey, the beginnings of "The Blue Danube" 150 years ago this week were inauspicious.

But Johann Strauss Junior's rousing waltz, first performed on February 15, 1867, is now one of the world's most famous and catchiest pieces of classical music.

It features in movies galore and is being performed and danced to still.

"An der schönen blauen Donau", as it is known in the original German, began life as a choral work commissioned by the Vienna Men's Choral Society.

The main aim was to cheer people up after Austria had lost an important and bloody battle against Prussia, at Koniggratz, the previous summer.

The title was said to have been inspired by a poem but the words were penned by the society's own lyricist, a policeman who humorously bemoaned the state of the defeated country.

It was not an immediate runaway success, although an exhibition marking the anniversary at Vienna’s Rathaus (City Hall) seeks to refute the belief that it was a total flop.

One glowing contemporary account even calls it a "schlager" (German for "hit") -- supposedly the first recorded use of the term.

But the piece only really took off once an orchestral version was performed in Paris later in 1867, to a rapturous reception, and soon afterwards in London.

In a tour of the United States in 1872, Strauss conducted a performance by a 2,000-piece orchestra and a 20,000-strong choir to 100,000 people.

"How am I supposed to conduct this mess?" the composer reputedly said.

The rest is history

Today "The Blue Danube" evokes like no other waltz the elegance of Vienna's 19th-century heyday -- which lives on in the city's ball season, currently in full swing.

It also takes pride of place in the Vienna New Year's Concert every January 1, and is Austria's unofficial national anthem.

When Austria declared its independence from Nazi Germany in April 1945, it was "The Blue Danube" that was performed since at the time the country had no official national anthem of its own.

The national airline Austrian Airlines plays the music to passengers before takeoff and after landing. A survey in 2016 of customers found 72 percent in favour of the practice continuing.

It is also a perennial favourite on the silver screen, most famously in Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey" but also in "Cool Runnings" and "Titanic", to name but a few.

http://news.sky.com/story/hitler-lookalike-suspected-of-glorifying-nazi-era-arrested-in-austria-10767622

Austrian authorities have arrested an Adolf Hitler lookalike who is suspected of breaking laws against glorifying the Nazi era.

The 25-year-old, described by local media as "Hitler's double", sports the distinctive moustache, haircut and clothing.

An investigation was launched after the suspect identified himself in a local bar as Harald Hitler, and was allegedly spotted in a local bookshop browsing through magazines about the Second World War.

Glorifying Hitler or the Nazis is a criminal offence in Austria, which was annexed by Nazi Germany in 1938...etc.

I can't wait to see what his excuse is.....

Update:   Austrian police say Hitler double is 'obsessed with Nazi era'

Austrian police have said that an Adolf Hitler lookalike who was arrested on Monday will likely be ordered to remain in pretrial custody on Wednesday.
Investigators who searched the man’s house in Braunau am Inn, where Hitler was born, said that they found material to do with the Third Reich and that the 25-year-old Austrian man was obviously obsessed with the Nazi era.

For the past two weeks the man had been spotted wandering around Braunau, sporting Hitler’s infamous moustache and side parting, and dressed in a military outfit. He called himself "Harald Hitler", and was arrested under a 1947 Austrian law which made it illegal to promote Nazi ideology.

Authorities became aware of his existence after photos emerged on social media of the man posing outside Hitler's actual birth house, a large yellow building in the town's historic centre. Other snaps showed him standing in a Braunau pub dressed in traditional garb including a loden jacket and lederhosen.

The man, originally from Styria, moved to Braunau in mid-January. Police say he told them he had planned to move to Munich in Germany and “get involved in politics” but had run out of money.

He doesn’t have any previous criminal record, and many people have commented on social media that he is probably just a prankster who was dressing up for carnival. However, Alois Ebner from the public prosecutor’s office said that the man is without a doubt a “serious” fan of Hitler, and that he could face a prison sentence of between one and 10 years. He added that the man appeared to be mentally sound of mind.

An acquaintance of ‘Harald’ told local media that the 25-year-old had dropped out of art school and had taken acting lessons. “He wanted to learn to move like Adolf Hitler,” he said.

Sounds like a complete loser and nutjob, frankly. And if he wants to 'move like Hitler', I suggest he starts by losing a couple of stones of podge......

Actually, without the stupid moustache and greasy hair, he looks more like a parking warden than a deranged dictator....not a very convincing tribute act, IMO.