Asylum seeker stabs Syrian refugee 'who raped him' in Austria

Man tells police he was raped after being arrested for attempted murder

Tens of thousands of refugees are living in temporary accommodation after arriving in Austria (EPA)

An asylum seeker has stabbed a man he accused of drugging and raping him in an Austrian refugee shelter.

The 45-year-old Moroccan man made the allegation after being arrested for attempted murder in Vienna and remains in custody.

A spokesperson for the state police said officers were called to refugee accommodation in the Favoriten district shortly before midnight on Sunday.

“The suspect attacked a 27-year-old man with a knife and stabbed him in the chest area,” he added.

“Other residents of the accommodation came to the victim’s aid and called the police.”

The stabbing victim, a Syrian national, was taken to hospital in a life-threatening condition but has now stabilised and is undergoing treatment for serious injuries.

In the aftermath of the attack, the assailant accused his victim of rape, which the stabbed man “vehemently denied” when questioned by police.

Earlier on Sunday, the Moroccan man had himself been treated in hospital for wounds consistent with a sexual assault, telling doctors he had been raped by two men in Ottakring.

Police confirmed officers were sent to the hospital after being called by staff shortly after noon but did not say what, if any, action was taken before the claimant was discharged.

He said he had been in an apartment with two men who offered him a lemonade, which he drank shortly before starting to feel dizzy and falling unconscious, when he says he was raped by both men.

Under 12 hours later, the man stabbed his alleged attacker in the chest.

Investigators in Vienna are treating the two crimes as linked, with specialists examining blood samples from the Moroccan man for traces of “date rape” drugs and attempting to locate the alleged crime scene.

At least 26,400 asylum applications have been lodged in Austria so far this year, with the country lying on the Balkans route taken by more than a million migrants who landed in Greece last year to reach Western Europe.

More than 85,000 asylum seekers arrived in the country in 2015 but the government has pledged to only accept a maximum of 37,500 applications this calendar year.

Construction has started on a one-mile fence planned for Austria’s border with Hungary, which hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers have crossed, following a fence barring the way from Slovenia.

The preparations, which involve burying vertical pipes for fence poles in the ground, began on Monday, but a decision whether to put up a new fence has not officially been reached.

Construction workers making preparations for a fence along the Austrian Hungarian border near Nickelsdorf on 19 September 2016. (EPA)

The barrier, near the town of Nickelsdorf, will only be erected if politicians decide to activate a controversial new package of measures enabling the country to turn away many of those seeking asylum.

Measures, including a rapid assessment of potential claims at the border, could be triggered by the end of October to keep numbers below the annual cap.

Humanitarian agencies have criticised the plans, which come after the flow of refugees crossing the Aegean Sea to Greece was dramatically cut by the EU-Turkey deal, seeing arrivals detained under threat of deportation if their applications fail.

Hungary has built a fence along its borders with Serbia and Croatia, and Balkan countries have introduced restrictions of their own largely shutting down the route into the heart of Europe.

More than 3,200 migrants have died so far this year attempting treacherous sea crossings to Italy and Greece, while 300,000 have made the journey.

Many of those trying to reach the UK remain trapped in the “Jungle” camp in Calais, where a 14-year-old Afghan boy was run over while trying to reach his family last week.