Europe digital editor
VIFOGRA/PAUL/EPA-EFEAn Afghan man arrested on suspicion of driving into a crowd of people in Munich, injuring 36, has admitted carrying out the attack and appears to have had a religious motivation, say prosecutors.
Munich public prosecutor Gabriele Tilmann told reporters that the suspect had said “Allahu Akbar” (God is greatest) in Arabic when he was detained and she described the attack as “Islamist motivated”.
A two-year-old girl is among two people who were critically injured in the attack near Munich central station on Thursday. She is in intensive care.
Another eight people were seriously hurt. Updating details of the casualties, police said 32 were male and four were female.
Thursday’s car-ramming in the heart of Munich came 10 days before Germans go the polls in federal elections overshadowed by a series of earlier attacks carried out by immigrants. Two of the alleged attackers had come from Afghanistan.
As snow fell in Munich on Friday, President Frank-Walter Steinmeier visited the scene of attack and said “the brutality of this act upsets us and leaves us stunned”.
Police chief Guido Limmer said the Munich suspect, identified as Farhad N who is 24, had been questioned for two hours after the attack.
During questioning, he told police that he had driven his Mini Cooper car intentionally into the crowd, who were taking part in a trade union protest at the time.
Farhad N was due to appear in court on Friday afternoon. He had no previous criminal record and police said there was no evidence of a link to a jihadist group. He also appears to have acted alone, police say.
He arrived in Germany in 2016 and although his application for asylum was turned down he was allowed to stay in Germany and had a valid residence and work permit.
The Munich prosecutor confirmed to reporters that Farhad N had been living in Germany legally.
The attack happened on the eve of the Munich Security Conference. After arriving in the city on Friday US Vice-President JD Vance expressed his condolences to the 36 people injured in the attack.
Authorities initially suggested that the suspect had been convicted of shoplifting, but Bavaria’s Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann later clarified that he had been working as a store detective and had appeared as a witness in shoplifting trials rather than as an alleged offender.
