By Timo Kirez
GENEVA (AA) - Unknown persons left a severed pig's head at the entrance of a mosque in the Austrian city of Graz, public broadcaster ORF reported Monday.
According to the report, a local resident notified police at around 9:40 p.m. Sunday evening, stating that the entrance area of the mosque had been damaged.
Police found the severed pig's head at the entrance when they reached the site.
The State Office for the Protection of the Constitution took over the investigation.
Graz has witnessed similar incidents in the past. On the night of May 6, 2016, a man arrested a short time later had attached pig head halves to the exterior of a mosque and spilled pig blood.
The man and two accomplices had been convicted in 2020. In 2021, two members of the Austrian Army Counterintelligence Office were also charged in connection with the 2016 incident. They were accused of knowing about the attack in 2016 but protecting their informants and not passing on their knowledge to the police.
The two individuals were sentenced to fines in January 2021, but had appealed the verdict. These proceedings are still ongoing.