Investigating human rights Police - murder at the Brunnenmarkt According to numerous media reports, a man brutally murdered a 54-yearold woman with an iron bar in the Brunnenmarkt, a market place located in the 16th district of Vienna, on the night of 3 - 4 May 2016. Because of the public criticism of possible omissions by the authorities, the AOB conducted an ex-officio investigative proceeding. The investigative proceeding was independent of the Brunnenmarkt special commission established by the Federal Ministry of Justice and illuminated areas that were not the focus of this special commission. The AOB investigated aspects related to residence law, the Aliens’ Police and housing law. The man, who came from Kenya, had been granted several residence permits since 2008, which were based on family reunification with his mother, who lives in Austria. The municipal department MA 35 did not decide on the last application for extension – which was belatedly filed by the mother in October 2011 – until August 2012. Thus, the proceedings lasted more than nine months. The AOB found that the proceedings were unnecessarily long since the formal criteria had not been met and MA 35 knew that a motherchild relationship no longer existed. Residence permit excessive length of proceedings In addition, according to the Federal Ministry of the Interior, MA 35 incorrectly entered an application for extension into the database of the immigration information system. The case workers entrusted with the case at the Office of the Aliens’ Police at the Police Department of Vienna assumed that the man was in the country legally, and therefore took no steps to authorise measures to terminate his residence. The AOB criticised that MA 35, as an authority responsible for residence permits, had made the erroneous entry, but also determined that the Office of the Aliens’ Police received a letter from MA 35 dated November 2011 informing the Office that the application for extension had been filed late. Therefore, the Aliens’ Police knew that the application did not extend the man’s residence permit. The discrepancy between this information and the entry in the immigration information system should at least have been noticed. The AOB criticised the fact that the Aliens’ Police did not follow up on this information. MA 35 and Alien‘s Police had different information MA 35 rejected the (last) application for the issuance of a residence permit in August 2012. In late January 2013, i.e. several months later, the Federal Ministry of the Interior asked the mother, as the man’s legal representative, to send documents, which she submitted in February 2013. Not until the end of May 2013 was the mother asked to provide a power of attorney because the son had come of age “in the meantime”. However, the son was already of legal age in December 2012. In October 2013, the Federal Ministry of the Interior held a hearing of the parties. Thereafter, it took no further steps due to an organisational realignment (transfer of jurisdiction to the Regional Administrative Court as of 1 January 2014). The Federal Ministry of the Interior A file was with the Federal Ministry for 15 months 67