VIENNA, Oct. 16 -- Two letterbombs exploded in eastern Austria Monday, wounding a refugee assistant and a physician of Syrian origin in the latest of a series of attacks spanning 22 months, Austrian radio reported. Another physician, of Chinese origin, received a third letterbomb but did not open it. The Interior Ministry immediately issued a statement broadcast on radio warning Austrian citizens not to open any suspicious letters. One of the letterbombs exploded in a post office at Poysdorf, 24 miles (40 km) north of Vienna, injuring the hands of refugee assistant Maria Loley when she opened the parcel, radio ORF said. Loley, 71, was awarded a human rights prize for her work by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in 1994. The second bomb exploded in the village of Strohnsdorf in Mistelbach district, also north of Vienna, causing injuries to the right hand of an Austrian physician of Syrian origin. Abou-Roumie Mahmoud, 37, was treated at a hospital and released. According to Public Security Director Michael Sika, the letters were linked to the 'Bavarian Liberation Army,' which in a previous letter had claimed responsibility for three earlier waves of letterbomb attacks. The explosions were the latest in a series of 15 attacks in Austria and Germany in the past 22 months. All attacks were directed toward people who were known to support foreigners or were working with refugees. In a separate bomb attack attributed to right-wing elements, four gypsies were killed in February.
The two bombs exploded on the same day former Vienna Mayor Helmut Zilk, who lost three fingers of his left hand in a letterbomb explosion in 1993, testified in the Vienna trial of two Austrian neo-Nazis suspected of involvement in the first spate of letterbomb attacks Dec. 3-6, 1993. The two suspects, Peter Binder and Franz Radl, both 28, pleaded innocent to ten counts of attempted murder in the trial. Binder has admitted he is able to build bombs. Both pleaded guilty to neo-Nazi activity and participation in the illegal ultra-right wing group VAPO. The head of the Austrian Green Party, Madeleine Petrovic, who was another addressee in the 1993 letterbomb attacks but did not open the one mailed to her, testified Monday in the trial, which began Sept. 11.
