The perpetrator is a 24-year-old Afghan citizen, a Muslim, who came to Germany as an unaccompanied minor refugee in 2016, and had a residence permit. He has no criminal record or evidence of other crimes he has committed. He worked as a detective in a store and in this regard gave testimony about other thefts. However, he himself did not participate in such as the information he had before, it was explicitly stated at the press conference today.
No evidence of accomplices
The information provided also makes it clear that the attacker was very religious, regularly went to mosques and posted on Instagram and WhatsApp, including religious content. The state prosecution sees a religious context in the attack. "I would dare to speak of Islamist motives for the crime," said lead prosecutor Gabriele Tillmann at a press conference in Munich today. The perpetrator himself has meanwhile admitted that he deliberately drove his car into participants in a demonstration by the Verdi union in Munich on Thursday. The demonstration itself has no connection with the Munich Security Conference, which opens today in the Bavarian capital. In general, the motive for the act committed by the Afghan is religious, but so far there is no evidence of a connection to an extremist organization, such as the "Islamic State".
There is also no evidence so far that the perpetrator had accomplices. He most likely acted alone. So far, there are no indications that the young man had any psychological problems. „
The attacker will appear before a judge today and is to be held in custody, but not under psychiatric care. The charge reads „attempted murder in 36 cases". That is how many people were injured in the attack. Two of them are seriously injured, including a child.
The Bavarian Central Office for Combating Extremism and Terrorism (ZET) and the Federal Prosecutor's Office are working on the case.
Another similar attack in Germany
On January 22, an Afghan national facing deportation attacked a group of children in the Bavarian city of Aschaffenburg with a knife and killed a 2-year-old boy and a 41-year-old passerby who came to help. Three other people, including a two-year-old girl, were injured.
A month earlier, on the evening of December 20, a car drove at high speed into a crowd of people at a Christmas market in Magdeburg, the capital of the eastern German state of Saxony-Anhalt. The driver, Taleb A., a native of Saudi Arabia, arrived in Germany in 2006. He is a doctor by profession and had a long-term residence permit. The attack killed five people and injured 205 others.