An Afghan migrant believed to be linked to the rape and murder of a 13-year-old Austrian girl has been arrested in London following an international manhunt.
The 22-year-old Afghan is the fourth suspect in the case of the rape and murder of 13-year-old Leonie, who was found dead with her body slumped against a tree in late June.
According to a report from the Austrian newspaper Kronen Zeitung, the 22-year-old was taken into custody on Thursday but awaits possible extradition to Austria, a process that could take time if the migrant decides to fight the extradition request.
Austria’s Interior Minister Karl Nehammer commented on the case, saying that interrogations of the 22-year-old will reveal how he escaped from Austria to the United Kingdom. Austrian Federal Police were reportedly also involved in the manhunt for the suspect.
The arrested suspect was one of two migrants who initially met with Leonie on the day of her murder, meeting the young teen at the Danube Canal and allegedly giving her tablets of ecstasy before taking her to an apartment in the Donaustadt district of Vienna where she was given more drugs.
According to a report from several weeks ago, the teen may have been given as many as eleven pills of ecstasy before she was allegedly raped and then died, allegedly of heart failure.
The other migrant who met the 13-year-old at the Danube Canal was initially said to be 16-years-old but had his age called into question, with some experts claiming he is at least 18 and possibly as old as 20.
The suspect arrested in London had come to Austria during the 2015 migrant crisis and despite being ordered to leave the country in 2017 — and having been convicted of three crimes after his deportation order — he was not removed from the country by Austrian authorities.
Another suspect in the case, aged 23 and also an Afghan national, had been issued a deportation order in 2018 but filed an appeal. In May of 2020, he was convicted and sentenced for bodily injury but was still not deported from the country.