Two Turkish Men Residing In Vienna Named Heroes After Saving A Woman And A Police Officer During The Terrorist Attack

Photo: (L) Police officers stand guard on a street after exchanges of gunfire in Vienna, Austria, November 3, 2020; (R) People take cover amid a shootout between police and terrorist gunmen in Vienna, Austria, November 2, 2020. © Reuters / Leonhard Foeger

Two Turkish men have been declared heroes after saving a woman and a police officer during the Islamic extremist attack on Vienna. In a viral video that was captured of the attack, the men were seen shouting 'take cover' and then moving an injured woman and policeman from the danger.

The two men, who are also MMA (multiple partial arts) fighters, were named as Mikail Ozen and Recep Gultekin. Gultekin received a small injury to his leg during the attack that left five people dead and many more wounded.

Ozen told a Turkish newspaper:

"An old woman was heading towards the scene, walking on foot. When we saw the woman, we stopped and went downstairs. We also took that woman to a safe place. Then we came to the subway station [seen] in those images. I saw the police shot there."

It is thought that at one point, the gunman was only around 6 metres away from where the two heroes pulled the two wounded to safety, meaning they could have been killed at any time. Some have now started calling the two 'the heroes of Vienna'.

Dear followers,some are spreading fake news that one of the attackers in Vienna was speaking Turkish.The man in the video that is seen screaming in Turkish is a boxer and that man tried to help the police officers that got shot but sadly he got shot/wounded also by the terrorist. pic.twitter.com/iPU7lXGI5O

— CaucasusWarReport (@Caucasuswar) November 2, 2020

It had initially been thought that many individuals were involved in the attack however it later transpired that only one man was involved, named as Kujtim Fejzulai, a 20-year-old of Northern Macedonian origin who had lived in Austria his whole life. The video involving the two Turkish men shouting had led some to claim that Turkish speakers were involved in the attack, this is not true.

#Wien #Vienna

We just spoke to Mikail Ozen, whose voice can be heard in Turkish in this video and who has helped an injured police officer.

He says one of his friends has been injured too, while he and another friend are in healthy condition. https://t.co/VO5MC1JsVL

— Sibel Karkuş (@KarkusSibel) November 2, 2020

It is now being investigated whether the attacker worked alone or whether he was part of a wider conspiracy. The Austrian interior Ministry has already revealed that he was jailed in April 2019 for attempting to go to Syria to join ISIS. He was paroled after just 7 months, in December 2019, after convincing authorities that he was had changed his views and wished to become a productive member of society.