After a suspected terrorist-motivated shootout near the Israeli Consulate General in Münchenin which the attacker was arrested by the police on Thursday shot was, further details about the last resident in Flachgau 18-year-olds became known.
The man was not a “classic Islamist”. He attended a technical college for electrical engineering in Salzburg until the beginning of 2024, was considered intelligent and was a good student.
The 18-year-old also purchased 50 rounds of ammunition
The 18-year-old bought the weapon used in the crime, which is believed to be around 100 years old, from a private weapons collector in Salzburg’s Flachgau region on Wednesday – the day before the crime. As was explained at a background meeting at the Interior Ministry on Friday afternoon, the seller had offered the category C weapon – an older-style carbine that had to be repeated – around 14 days before the crime on an online platform where firearms are traded. The 18-year-old contacted the collector and the weapon changed hands for 350 euros plus another 50 euros for a fixed bayonet, said Franz Ruf, the Director General for Public Security. The 18-year-old also purchased 50 rounds of ammunition.
“It makes you angry when you have to ask yourself what else needs to happen or be prevented so that the police authorities have the tools to act against Islamists and terrorists on an equal footing,” said Interior Minister Gerhard Karner (ÖVP) in response to the latest events in front of media representatives at a press conference called at short notice at the Interior Ministry. “Modern investigative methods are needed, and those who “slow down and prevent” things must be accused of “protecting terrorists.”
After shooting in Munich – 18-year-old not a “classic Islamist”
Karner calls for implementation
Specifically, Karner demanded the rapid implementation of four points “so that the executive and the judiciary can proceed consistently.” The Interior Minister once again called for the monitoring of messenger services. Furthermore, the deradicalization programs must be expanded and extended to prisons, some of which are considered “breeding grounds” for Islamism. “We need to go deeper into prisons,” said Karner, who also wants to expand prevention work in schools. There will be more prevention officers, he announced.
In addition, the minister called for the reintroduction of mandatory conditional detention for young people for serious or terrorist crimes and a tightening of the assembly law “in order to be able to take stronger action against political Islam.” Karner assured that he would “continue to fight hard for this.”
During the Corona pandemic, the older of two sons from a family from the former Yugoslavia – the parents had moved from their homeland to Austria in the wake of the chaos of war and are considered to be well integrated – had withdrawn. He became more of a loner and was teased and taunted at school. The father experienced his older son as having psychological problems and is said to have therefore tried to get in touch with a psychologist.
The 18-year-old had a weapons ban until 2028
In February 2024, the boy dropped out of school, did an internship and started an apprenticeship in a mechanical engineering company last Monday. Until Wednesday, he always showed up for work on time. When he failed to show up on Thursday, the employer contacted the 18-year-old’s parents. Since he was neither at home nor reachable by phone and the family’s vehicle was also missing, the parents, who live in a single-family home in Neumarkt am Wallersee, reported him missing to the local police station.
They had no idea that the 18-year-old was on his way to Munich with the illegally acquired long gun. The 18-year-old had been banned from carrying weapons by the Salzburg-Land district administration authority until 2028. The Salzburg public prosecutor’s office had investigated him last year for terrorist organization (§278b StGB). His cell phone had been confiscated after he made a dangerous threat to fellow students and caused bodily harm. From the police’s point of view, “there was suspicion that he had become religiously radicalized, was active online and was interested in explosives and weapons,” as the Salzburg State Police Directorate recently stated in a press release.
“The accused was suspected of having made dangerous threats to fellow students”
This suspicion was not substantiated. The Salzburg State Office for State Protection and Combating Extremism (LSE) sent the public prosecutor’s office a total of five reports on the 18-year-old. The Salzburg public prosecutor’s office closed the investigation into the terror allegations on April 23, 2023.
“The facts for which the investigation was carried out dated from 2021 to 2023. The accused was suspected of having made dangerous threats to fellow students, which resulted in bodily harm, and of being interested in instructions on how to build bombs. He is also said to have participated in a terrorist organization by depicting Islamist scenes of violence in an online computer game and making videos of them,” the Salzburg public prosecutor’s office explained on Friday afternoon. Due to the suspicion, a court-approved search was carried out at the boy’s place of residence. During the previous year, several data storage devices, including a mobile phone and a desktop PC, were seized and evaluated. No relevant data was found on the mobile phone.
No evidence that the accused moved in radical Islamic circles
“On the desktop PC there were three videos that the then 14-year-old accused had recorded himself in 2021. They showed scenes from a computer game with Islamist content. Only one of these videos showed symbols of the terrorist organization Al-Nusra Front For the People of the Levant, also known as Hay’at Tahir al-Sham (HTS),” the prosecution announced in a press release. It could not be proven during the investigation that the youth had sent the videos he had made to other people or otherwise used them for propaganda purposes: “In the specific case at hand, no intent could be proven by playing a computer game or reenacting Islamist scenes of violence and therefore the offense of participation in a terrorist organization under Section 278b Paragraph 2 of the Criminal Code was not fulfilled.”
Furthermore, there was no evidence that the accused moved in radical Islamic circles or lived a particularly religious life. According to the public prosecutor’s office, he was “a young person with relatively few social contacts.” No other objects or data with a connection to terrorism were found last year, nor were any plans, instructions or explosives for building bombs.
A search of the residence was carried out late into the night
The Bavarian police confirmed on Friday that they had no information about the gunman who was killed. A query of the databases on the 18-year-old Austrian was negative, said a spokesman for the Bavarian State Office of Criminal Investigation (LKA). “We had no documents on him.” German security circles also assumed that the suspect had a connection to the Islamist militia HTS. The Bavarian Office for the Protection of the Constitution writes that HTS emerged in 2017 from the merger of a former Al-Qaeda offshoot and several smaller militant Syrian groups. Unlike al-Qaeda, which continues to plan attacks in the West, HTS is concentrating on Syria and wants to overthrow the ruler there, Bashar al-Assad.
After the thwarted suspected terrorist attack, a house search was carried out at the 18-year-old’s residence in Neumarkt am Wallersee until late into the night. Neither weapons nor other conspicuous objects – such as insignia of terrorist organizations or propaganda material – were found, announced the General Director for Public Security, Franz Ruf. However, numerous objects – electronic devices, USB sticks, other data storage devices – were confiscated and are now being evaluated. The furnishings in the room of the boy, who lives with his parents and a brother who is two years younger, are said to have shown no indication of any connection to Islamist ideology. The 18-year-old shot dead by the police did not look like an Islamist either. For example, he did not have a beard.
Shots fired at several buildings
German investigators believe that this was an attempted terrorist attack on the Israeli Consulate General. The gunman drove up to the Nazi Documentation Center in his family’s vehicle and entered the building. He “fired shots at the Nazi Documentation Center as well as the Consulate General of the State of Israel and two other buildings,” police said.
The perpetrator was asked by the police to put down his weapon before the fatal shootout
At the Nazi Documentation Center, he shot at the facade and the glass door. He then briefly entered two neighboring buildings. This was indicated by traces of blood, among other things. Shortly afterwards, there was an exchange of fire outside between the 18-year-old Austrian and five officers, in which the young man died and two other people suffered acoustic trauma.
The attacker, who was shot by police in Munich, was ordered by police to put down his weapon before the fatal shootout. This was stated by police operations manager Christian Huber. He had already been seen by a police patrol as he got out of his vehicle.
(The Agency, against)
| Updated on 06.09.2024, 14:53
