A migrant gang, who attacked the father of a girl they harassed for being “immodest” at a shopping centre in Vienna, have been sentenced in court.
A gang of men, who come originally from the Muslim-majority Russian region of Chechnya, are said to have brutally beaten a man who was coming to the aid of his daughter and her friends. The gang have now been sentenced for the assault, The Local reports.
The man’s daughter and several other teenage girls were approached by the gang at a restaurant at the Millennium City shopping centre in the Austrian capital of Vienna in February.
The migrant men told the girls, some of whom were also Chechen, that they looked “immodest”, that their behaviour was wrong and they should go home. They were with the mother of one of the girls when the men, who modelled themselves on Sharia Patrol groups, detained them.
The gang told them: “We, and only we, are bringing the girls back home. They are our country’s women.”
The mother, Miroslava, grew worried that the men would follow her and the girls. After a security guard refused to intervene, she called her husband.
Miroslava’s husband, Martin, met the group at the restaurant a short time later where he was set upon and attacked by the migrant gang and brutally assaulted.
The 44-year-old father was beaten so badly that he required surgery and a titanium plate to reinforce his eye socket. A witness to the events who tried to intervene was also assaulted by the gang. The migrants then fled the scene before police could arrive.
It wasn’t until the end of March that the men were arrested by Vienna police.
The gang were identified as Chechen migrants aged between 19 and 24. The Vienna courts have sentenced three of them to between eight to ten months in prison while the fourth man was let off with a €480 fine for inciting violence.
According to one witness the group are well known at the shopping centre and call themselves “the Wolves.”
The group has an online presence in which they have all adopted the last name “Wolf,” stating online that they “are family – the Mafia family.” Another member posted a threat to outsiders saying: “There are 1,000 reasons why we need to kill you, but the best is because of the funny looks.”
Migrant gangs in Vienna and across Europe are on the rise with many cases ranging from assaults, to drug running and murder.
Earlier this year in Vienna Chechen gang members fought with Afghan gang members outside of a youth centre that saw several men stabbed.
In Austria on Wednesday, 11 migrant gang members were arrested on charges of drug possession and violence. The men, who had claimed asylum from Algeria, were found with large quantities of drugs and a samurai sword.
They are said to have fought with rivals at Vienna’s Praterstern train station, which has become a hub for migrant crime, including several high profile rape cases.
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