Shocking: shooting at the Hungarian-Austrian border

As Helló Magyar wrote, there was a shooting yesterday afternoon at the Harka crossing point on the Hungarian-Austrian border. The police wanted to check a van, but the driver tried to hit the patrol officer to avoid being checked, police.hu reported.

Early Thursday afternoon, border control officers spotted a vehicle with Lithuanian licence plates. Due to the suspicious behaviour of the driver and the passengers, officers suspected that they might be members of a human trafficking gang, Helló Magyar wrote.

They informed their colleagues on the Hungarian side, alerting them to be more vigilant. The result of this was that soon afterwards, they spotted the van they wanted to check.

The driver did not stop

One of the officers, as usual, stepped out onto the road and ordered the driver of the van to stop. However, the driver, increasing his speed, steered the vehicle towards the officer and tried to run him over.

Fortunately, he was able to jump out of the way in time. In the meantime, his partner, noticing the incident, drew his service weapon and fired several shots at the van. But the vehicle did not stop, and it drove across the border.

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The bullets probably caused the van to become inoperable and stop after crossing the border. The Hungarian police informed their Austrian counterparts, who arrived at the scene and checked the vehicle.

Suspicions were confirmed

The investigation revealed that the officers’ suspicions were not unfounded. Thirty people of unknown nationality were travelling in the cargo hold of the van, which was otherwise registered in Hungary.

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The authorities took both the passengers and the Egyptian driver to the authorities and have started an investigation. No one was injured during the incident.

The offence of human trafficking is punished by imprisonment of between one and five years but may increase to five to fifteen years in aggravated cases.

Source: Helló Magyar, police.hu