Swiss man released after arrest in connection with Austrian bomb threats

According to the Austrian Federal Railways (ÖBB), around 450 trains and thousands of passengers were affected by the first five bomb threats at railway stations alone. Copyright 2020 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved

A 20-year-old Swiss man was arrested under suspicion that he sent emails with bomb threats against numerous institutions in Austria. According to the public prosecutor’s office, the man was subsequently released.

+ Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox

No pre-trial detention was requested, a spokesperson for the St Gallen public prosecutor’s office told the Austrian news agency APA on Wednesday. The man will not be extradited to Austria by the Swiss authorities. “As a Swiss citizen, he would have to give his consent, but he has not,” said the spokesperson.

The St Gallen authorities carried out a house search on the 20-year-old. The “requested procedural acts” have been completed. Now the Austrians have to react.

The responsible public prosecutor’s office in Linz, however, believes that the Swiss should take over the case. If the man cannot be extradited, the proceedings will have to be taken over by them, a spokesperson told the APA. According to the spokesperson, this is part of the request for legal assistance.

27 bomb threats received

The Austrian authorities have been investigating a total of 27 anonymous bomb threats across Austria since September 30, all of which were received by email. Railway stations were particularly affected, but threats were also received against schools and shopping centres. The subsequent police operations sometimes led to evacuations.

According to the Austrian Federal Railways (ÖBB), around 450 trains and thousands of passengers were affected by the first five bomb threats at railway stations alone. In total, train services were disrupted for around eight hours, according to the Austrian Federal Railways.

The Austrian state security authorities investigated the 20-year-old Swiss national as an “urgent” suspect. A European arrest warrant had been issued for him.

Translated from German by DeepL/jdp

How we work

This news story has been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team. At SWI swissinfo.ch we select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools such as DeepL to translate it into English. Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles.

If you want to know more about how we work, have a look here, if you want to learn more about how we use technology, click here, and if you have feedback on this news story please write to [e-mail].