Germany: Eight Dead In Two Shootings, Suspect Found Dead

Nine people were killed Wednesday night in Hanau, near Frankfurt in central Germany, in two shootings, the alleged perpetrator of which was later found dead at his home, police said.

The shootings targeted shisha bars and also left several people seriously injured, according to local media. “At this stage, the police can only confirm that eight people have been fatally injured,” authorities said in a statement overnight. A seriously injured person died Thursday morning, reporting the killings to nine killed, according to a spokesperson.

A person suspected of being the author of the killing was found dead a few hours later, alongside another unidentified body.

“The accused was found lifeless at his home in Hanau. The police’s special intervention forces also discovered another body there. The investigation continues. Currently, there is no indication that there are other perpetrators, “police in the southeastern state of Hesse, where Hanau is located, wrote on Twitter.

Investigators also found his car, which contained ammunition and magazines, local press said, adding that the suspect was licensed to hunt and is said to be German.

An important police force had been deployed after the shootings in Hanau, a city located about twenty kilometers from Frankfurt. An Nigeria News journalist on the spot saw around thirty police cars leaving the Hanau police station and, according to witnesses, heavily armed police were deployed in the city.

“Shock”

The first shooting targeted a shisha bar, the Midnight, in the heart of this city of approximately 90,000 inhabitants. Police say at least one person was seriously injured at the first site around 10:00 p.m. (4:00 p.m. ET). Witnesses, quoted by local media, reported hearing a dozen shots.

The alleged perpetrator then left this first site by car in the direction of Kurt-Schumacher Platz, in the district of Kesselstadt, according to the police.

A second shooting then took place, which left “at least five seriously injured” according to the authorities’ initial assessment. According to local media, three people were killed in front of the first hookah bar and five in front of the second, L’Arena Bar.

The gunman reportedly rang the door of the second bar and shot people in the smoking area, killing five including a woman, reports Bild, adding that the victims are of Kurdish origin.

“The victims are people we have known for years,” reacted the son of the bar manager, quoted by the DPA agency. Two employees were among the victims, according to this witness, absent like his father at the time of the shooting. “It’s a shock to everyone. ”

“It is a real horror scenario,” deplored the Conservative member for the riding, Katja Leikert. The social-democratic mayor of Hanau, Claus Kaminsky, spoke to him of a “terrible evening, which will certainly haunt us for a very, very long time. He asked to avoid “speculation” and called on residents to “be careful”.

Threat

The motive for these attacks is not yet known, said a police spokesman.

Germany has been targeted in recent years by several jihadist attacks, one of which killed 12 people in the heart of Berlin in December 2016.

But it is the threat of far-right terrorism that worries the German authorities the most, especially since the murder of a prominent German elected member of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s party last June.

On Friday, 12 members of a far-right group were arrested in connection with a major counterterrorism investigation. They are suspected of having planned large-scale attacks on mosques on the model of the author of the attack on Christchurch in New Zealand, who in March 2019 had killed 51 people in two mosques by filming themselves live. They were taken into custody.

In October, a right-wing extremist Holocaust denier had attempted to carry out an attack in a synagogue in Halle, a massacre being only barely avoided. Unable to enter the religious building in which the faithful had barricaded themselves, he had shot a passerby and the client of a kébab restaurant, broadcasting his packages live on the Internet.

Eight neo-Nazis in Dresden, in the former GDR, have also been on trial for almost five months for planning attacks on foreigners and politicians.

The association Ditib, the main organization of the Turkish Muslim community in Germany, has called for more protection for its faithful who “do not feel safe anymore”.