Austria receives suspect 17 years after police stabbing

A man suspected of stabbing a Vienna police officer in 2009 has been extradited to Austria from Albania, ORF reported on Thursday. The 42-year-old had spent several years in Kosovo.

The St Pölten public prosecutor’s office is investigating him on suspicion of attempted murder, spokesperson Thomas Korntheuer said. The officer had asked the man for identification near Anton-Baumann-Park at about 8.30pm on 8 April 2009. The man fled, and the officer was later found by a colleague on Schulgasse, several hundred metres away, with life-threatening stab wounds. Police said he survived only because of several fortunate circumstances.

The suspect later went into hiding in Kosovo, where investigators tracked him down. Because Austria had no extradition agreement with Kosovo, Austrian investigators offered a 10,000-euro reward for information in January 2010.

According to the newspaper Heute, the man was arrested in 2016 and later convicted in Kosovo. That foreign court decision is not recognised in Austria, Korntheuer said. The newspaper also reported that the man was arrested at the Albanian border in May 2025. The St Pölten prosecutor’s office is handling the case after it was transferred from the Vienna office several years ago.