The attack
On the evening of November 2, 2020, a 20-year-old attacker later identified as Kujtim Fejzulai moved through a busy area of central Vienna and opened fire at several locations. The attack began shortly before a new set of pandemic restrictions was due to take effect, when many people were still in restaurants and public spaces.
Four people were killed and 23 others were injured, including a police officer. Austrian parliamentary records described a police response lasting only minutes before the attacker was shot and killed by officers. Investigators quickly concluded that the assailant supported the organization commonly known as the Islamic State, and the crime was treated as a terrorist attack.
The attacker’s prior conviction
Fejzulai had already come to the attention of Austrian authorities before the killings. In April 2019 he was convicted of membership in a terrorist organization after an unsuccessful attempt to travel to Syria to join the Islamic State. He received a 22-month prison sentence and was conditionally released in December 2019 after serving part of that term, subject to probation and participation in a deradicalization program.
Those facts became central to the public inquiry after the attack because Austrian authorities had also received information from Slovakia that Fejzulai had tried to obtain ammunition there in July 2020. Parliamentary debate and later reviews examined why that warning did not produce an intervention that prevented the November attack. Those institutional questions are separate from the criminal responsibility for the killings themselves.
Investigation of the support network
The investigation expanded beyond the dead attacker to people in his circle. Prosecutors alleged that several men had helped with preparations, weapons acquisition, encouragement, target selection or plans for escape. Six defendants eventually went on trial in Vienna.
In February 2023, a jury convicted four men on central allegations connecting them to the attack and imposed two life sentences, one 20-year sentence and one 19-year sentence. Two other defendants were acquitted of participation in the murders but convicted of offenses involving membership in the Islamic State and dissemination of propaganda.
Appeals and the 2024 retrial
The Austrian Supreme Court later left the core findings concerning participation in the murders intact but ordered part of the proceedings repeated because of defects in the way certain questions about terrorist-organization membership had been put to the jury. This distinction matters: the new trial did not erase the established murder-participation convictions.
In April 2024, three of the men whose organizational-status findings had been retried were again found to have belonged to the Islamic State. Their sentences were set at 20 years and two life terms. A fourth man who had supplied weapons was not part of that retrial; his life sentence for participation in the murders had already been confirmed by the Vienna Higher Regional Court.
April 2019: Fejzulai is convicted in Austria of terrorist-organization membership and sentenced to 22 months.
December 2019: he is conditionally released under probation and deradicalization conditions.
July 2020: Slovak authorities report an attempted ammunition purchase to Austria.
November 2, 2020: four people are killed and 23 injured in central Vienna; police shoot and kill the attacker.
February 2023: four men are convicted on central allegations connecting them to the attack; two others are acquitted of murder participation but convicted of terrorism-related offenses.
December 2023: the core murder-participation findings for three defendants are reported as final, while limited organizational findings are sent back for retrial.
April 24, 2024: the partial retrial ends with renewed terrorist-organization convictions and sentences of 20 years and two life terms for three men.
What is established — and what is not
The identity of the attacker and his responsibility for the killings are established. Criminal courts also found that multiple men contributed to the attack, including through weapons-related assistance and other forms of support. The final sentencing history is more complicated because part of the first trial had to be repeated, but the core findings of participation in the murders were not undone by that retrial.
Separately, official reviews identified serious concerns about information-sharing and missed warning signs before November 2. Those failures are matters of institutional accountability; they do not make individual public officials participants in the murders unless a court has made such a finding.
Current status
Crime by Region classifies the case as solved and adjudicated. The attacker was identified and killed during the police response, while courts later imposed lengthy sentences on men found to have assisted him. The attack continues to be examined in Austria as both a criminal case and a security-system failure, but those broader policy questions do not change the adjudicated status of the core offense.
Sources
Archive context
This case is included in the Austria archive. Related Austrian files include The 2015 Graz Attack, Franz Fuchs and the Austrian Letter Bomb Campaign and The Murder of Julia Kührer.