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CRIME

Update: Strasbourg gunman, previously jailed in Germany, said to have screamed ‘Allahu Akbar’

The suspect in the deadly shooting attack at a Christmas market in the French city of Strasbourg was jailed for burglary in Germany and is said to have shouted "Allahu Akbar" (God is great) before opening fire.

Published: 12 December 2018 12:16 CET
Updated: 12 December 2018 17:15 CET
Update: Strasbourg gunman, previously jailed in Germany, said to have screamed 'Allahu Akbar'
Police in Strasbourg on Wednesday after the attack. Photo: DPA

LATEST INFO:

French authorities said Wednesday that two people had died and 13 people were injured during a shooting at a Christmas market in Strasbourg. Initially it was thought the death toll was three. 

Witnesses described the gunman's words before the incident, which occurred around 8 p.m. on Tuesday evening. French prosecutor Remy Heitz also described the shooting as a terror attack.

“Terrorism has once again stuck our country,” said Heitz.

Strasbourg mayor Roland Ries said most of the victims were men, including one Thai tourist.

Witnesses said the shooter shouted “Allahu Akbar” (God is the greatest) before opening fire.

Over 600 people, including police, troops and helicopters were on the heels of the attacker who had “sowed terror” in the city.

The 29-year-old suspect, who is said to be from Strasbourg, was sentenced to two years and three months for burglaries in the city of Mainz and in the Baden-Württemberg state, and jailed in 2016.

“He served a year in Germany before being expelled to France,” a spokesman from Baden-Württemberg's interior ministry told AFP.

SEE ALSO: German-French border controls tightened as search for Christmas market shooter continues

According to the Tagesspiegel newspaper, the man broke into a dentist practice in Mainz, Rhineland Palatinate state, in 2012, making away with cash, stamps and gold used for teeth fillings.

Four years later, he hit a pharmacy in the Lake Constance town of Engen, Baden-Württemberg, pocketing cash.

However he was not deemed potentially dangerous Islamist, German authorities said Wednesday.

“For us, he was a blank slate,” said a spokeswoman of the Federal Criminal Police Office, which takes charge of cases related to terrorism.

An interior ministry spokeswoman also said that there has been no indications suggesting an Islamist link to the suspect.

Still looking for shooter

German authorities were on the lookout for the fugitive “along the Rhine” river region, the ministry spokesman said.

“But at the moment we do not believe that he has crossed into the country,” he added.

The gunman opened fire Tuesday evening at the famed Strasbourg Christmas market, which draws thousands of visitors every year.

Photo: Bing maps

The shooting left two people dead and13 people wounded.

French authorities said the attacker had been on their list of extremists and “is actively being hunted by security forces”. 

SEE ALSO: What we know so far about Strasbourg Christmas market shooting

Meanwhile, German police said they had detained three people in a taxi with French licence plates, after tipoffs given by the public following the Strasbourg attack.

The vehicle was halted on the A1 motorway close to the city Bremen, a police spokesman in Delmenhorst told national news agency DPA.

One of the passengers was masked, according to the report.

There was so far no indications that they were linked to the Christmas market attack, but police were checking the taxi for any suspicious traces and interrogating the three people.

Extra security measures in Germany?

Meanwhile, in Berlin, where a fatal terror attack took place at a Christmas market in Breitsheidplatz nearly two years ago, officials said no extra security measures were being put in place in Christmas markets, according to Berlin interior senator Andreas Geisel, reported the Berliner Morgenpost. 
 
 
Geisel said the Strasbourg attack, however, showed that the terrorist threat remained high. 
 
“This also applies to Berlin,” he said. “The police are prepared accordingly and protect the Christmas markets in our city visibly and with concealed means.” said Geisel.

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CRIME

Suspect held in latest attack on German politicians

German police on Wednesday arrested a 74-year-old man suspected of hitting a former mayor of Berlin in the head, the latest in a rash of assaults against politicians in Germany.

Published: 8 May 2024 09:36 CEST
Updated: 8 May 2024 17:11 CEST
Suspect held in latest attack on German politicians

The German government condemned the “growing despicable attacks”, stressing that the “climate of intimidation, of violence” was something that could not be accepted.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz blasted the attacks against politicians as “outrageous and cowardly”, stressing that violence did not belong in a democratic debate.

Franziska Giffey was at a library on Tuesday afternoon when the suspect came up from behind her to slug her in the head and neck with a bag containing hard objects, police said.

Giffey, who is now Berlin state’s economy minister and a member of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democratic Party (SPD), was treated in hospital for light injuries.

The detained suspect was previously known to investigators over “state security and hate crimes”, said police, adding that they were investigating the motive of the attack.

Prosecutors were also considering if the man should be sent to psychiatric care because of indications that he might be mentally ill.

Giffey said she was “feeling well after the initial scare”. But she was “concerned and shaken about a growing ‘free wild culture’ in which people who are engaging politically in our country are increasingly exposed to attacks that are supposedly justified and acceptable.

“We live in a free and democratic country, in which everyone can be free to express his or her opinions,” she wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

“But there is a clear line — and that is violence against people,” she added.

Berlin’s current mayor Kai Wegner said anyone who attacked politicians was “attacking our democracy.

“We will not tolerate this,” he added, vowing to examine “tougher sentences for attacks against politicians”.

Nazi salutes

A European member of parliament, also from the SPD, had to be hospitalised last week after four people attacked him as he put up EU election posters in the eastern city of Dresden.

Matthias Ecke, 41, needed an operation for serious injuries suffered in the attack, which Scholz denounced as a threat to democracy. Four suspects, aged between 17 and 18, are being investigated over the incident.

READ ALSO: Teenager turns self in after attack on German politician

All four are believed to have links to the far-right group known as “Elblandrevolte”, according to German media.

Dresden has been a hotspot for assaults against politicians, with another case reported on Tuesday.

S-Bahn in Dresden

An S-Bahn train drives through Dresden. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Robert Michael

A politician, identified by police only as a 47-year-old from the Green party, was threatened and spat on. She was putting up campaign posters for the European elections when a man came up, pushed her to the side and tore down two posters.

READ ALSO: Germany unveils new plan to fight far-right extremism

He insulted and threatened the politician, while a woman joined in and spat on the victim, police said. Officers arrested both suspects, police added, identifying them as a 34-year-old German man and a 24-year-old woman.

Both were in a group standing at the area and who had begun making the banned Hitler salute when the politician began putting up the posters.

According to provisional police figures, 2,790 crimes were committed against politicians in Germany in 2023, up from 1,806 the previous year. Nevertheless, that was down from the 2,840 recorded in 2021, when the last general elections were held.

By Hui Min Neo

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