Police Raid Home of Migrant Teen Who Threatened Foreign Minister

A 16-year-old Chechen migrant who became infamous in Austria after being involved in the beating of a young student has had his home raided after he sent threatening messages to Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz.

Ahmed K.’s apartment was raided by the Austrian armed police unit known as WEGA on Thursday after he made numerous threats against Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz on Facebook. The teen called Kurz a “son of a whore” and said the minister “wouldn’t get up again” if they ever crossed paths because of Kurz’s support for a ban on the full-face Islamic veil, Die Presse reports.

Police say the young migrant did not put up any resistance and was arrested at his apartment on Quellenstrasse in the Favoriten district of Vienna. The district is heavily populated by migrants and has been the scene of several violent incidents over the last year.

In September, a man was seriously injured by a tram after a brawl between rival migrants broke out in the district. The brawl, which was between Chechen and Turkish migrants, erupted after a Chechen told some Turks to stop being loud. The arguments escalated into a physical confrontation and the victim, a Serbian national, was pushed into the path of an oncoming tram.

In December, another incident occurred in Favoriten on the same street where the raid took place. An Albanian migrant stabbed two Polish men outside a bar after getting into a heated argument.

The 16-year-old Chechen was already known to authorities for his involvement in the serious assault of a teenaged girl. In November 2016, the Chechen encouraged several teenage girls to severely beat a 15-year-old girl named Patricia. The assault was filmed and posted on social media.

Patricia is seen in the video with her hands in her pockets refusing to defend herself because she said she thought the beating may be worse if she fought back. She suffered double jaw fractures.

Chechen youths have become an increasing problem for Austrian authorities over the last year. A gang of Chechen migrants beat a man last year at a Vienna shopping centre after he tried to defend his daughters from the self-proclaimed “sharia patrol” who said the girls were dressed “immodestly”.

Chechen gangs have also been involved in ethnic gang clashes with newly arrived migrants from Afghanistan. In March of 2016, seven people involved in the mass brawl, which involving knives and other weapons,  were hospitalised with severe injuries.