Pig's head in front of apartment of Turkish family in Hall: 29-year-old confesses

Role of the reward

Investigators had tracked down the man partly on the basis of a €10,000 reward offered by Mayor Christian Margreiter (Für Hall) for a decisive lead on the perpetrator. Margreiter wanted to pay the money out of his own pocket. The reward was paid out after a promising tip became known.

The suspect had "minimized the act as a bad joke," the police in Hall told APA. He also said, according to police, that he had done it "without thinking much about it." In this way, he attempted to play down the incident.

Legal consequences

The 29-year-old was reported to the Innsbruck Public Prosecutor's Office on suspicion of insult and denigration of religious doctrines. The specific penalty threatened in the event of a conviction depends on the outcome of the proceedings.

In the incident, a note with the message "Happy Ramadan ihr Affen!" had been stuck to the door. The writing and the pig's head together represented, in the investigators' assessment, a targeted humiliation of the family, who were in the Ramadan fasting period.

The police in Hall classified the case as an example of a religiously motivated insult. They emphasized that tips from the population had been crucial in solving the case. Mayor Margreiter had publicly announced the reward in order to obtain additional information from the population.

Classification

The incident is part of a series of incidents that Austrian media have addressed in the same breath as a heat wave and rising water levels. A related report mentioned that in the same period "Hitzewelle mit fatalen Folgen: Schon 25 Menschen in Österreich ertrunken" had to be mourned. Both topics are editorially, not causally linked.

The investigations by the Hall police have been completed; the case now lies with the Innsbruck Public Prosecutor's Office. The affected family has been informed of the outcome of the investigation. Further steps, such as civil claims, are a matter for those affected.

APA quoted the Hall police as saying that the accused had minimized the incident as a "bad joke." This portrayal was sharply rejected by the family and by observers. The mayor had explicitly understood the high reward also as a signal against any form of religious insult.