A young Afghan injured thirty people this Thursday, February 13, during a bolden car attack targeting a demonstration in Munich. This drama occurs ten days from a legislative election in the country on February 23, for which polls promise the extreme right alternative to Germany (AFD) a spectacular breakthrough. L’Express takes stock of this attack.
What happened
This Thursday morning, a man rushed aboard a mini cooper on the back of the procession of a demonstration organized by the Verdi service union, mowing dozens of people, according to the police. The police stopped the vehicle by pulling at least one shot, before arresting the young man.
The union said it was “upset and shocked” by this act, also condemning an “attack” against the procession of demonstrators. According to the Minister of the Interior of Bavaria, Joachim Herrmann, the alleged attack would not have a connection with the Munich on security conference, which brings together the Gotha of world diplomacy from Friday to Sunday in the Bavarian capital. Alexa Graef, a student in his twenties, was not far from there, and said herself with AFP “in shock” in the middle of the objects scattered on the road by the race of the car. A stroller lies overturned on the bitumen. “This is the first time that I have seen something like that and I hope the last one,” she adds.
The last assessment of the authorities in the evening reports thirty injured, including children and several people still “between life and death”, according to the mayor of Munich, Dieter Reiter. Eight people are “very seriously injured” and “eight others seriously,” he said.
What we know about the suspect
According to German media, the suspect is a 24 -year -old man, Farhad N., born in Kabul and arrived in Germany at the end of 2016 at fifteen. His asylum request had been rejected, but as he had found a job as a vigil in a store, he had the right to stay in the country.
According to the Bavarian public television channel, the man, who participated in bodybuilding competitions, broadcast this Wednesday on his Instagram account – in the meantime erased – saying: “Oh Allah, always protect us”.
Police spoke of “indications of an extremist context” concerning the young Afghan. But the Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Hermann said he was still “too early” to engage in “speculation”. Investigators comb the suspect’s phone and his messages on social networks. They also searched his accommodation.
Government reaction
Germany will “do everything” to use the expulsions of Afghan delinquents to Afghanistan, despite the “very difficult” situation in this country, said Interior Minister Nancy Faeser after this attack.
“Those who come to our country and commit crimes must be severely punished and then expelled even in difficult countries,” said the minister on the scene of the attack that was 30 injured. And “it will also happen to this man,” said the Social-Democratic Chancellor Olaf Scholz on public television. “A terrible attack in Munich upsets us. An Afghan author rushed into a demonstration. […] The culprit must feel the whole weight of the rule of law, “the German head of government said earlier on X.
This attack occurs while several Afghans have recently been involved in acts of violence that shocked Germany. “We must continue what we have started, namely, too, the evictions to Afghanistan,” said Nancy FaeSer during a press point on the scene of the drama.
Critics of the right and extreme right opposition
This attack tends a little more the electoral campaign in Germany, already dominated by questions of insecurity and immigration. “Will all this continue eternally?” Asked the File Right Fir Chef in view of the elections, Alice Weidel, demanding a “migratory turning point, now!”
The favorite of the polls to replace Olaf Scholz to the Chancellery, the Curator Friedrich Merz, promised to restore “order and the law in a substantial manner”. “People’s security in Germany will be the first priorities,” he said.