At the scene of what German leaders described as a car-ramming “attack” that left 28 people, some critically, injured in the southern city of Munich on Thursday, police detained an Afghan asylum seeker.
Following a string of similar attacks, the carnage occurred on the eve of a high-profile security conference in the Bavarian city and during a contentious immigration debate leading up to the February 23 elections.
A trail of injured people and their belongings, including a baby stroller, were left on the street after the Mini Cooper crashed into a trade unionist demonstration.
Rapidly arriving police shot at the damaged vehicle and arrested the driver, a 24-year-old Afghan asylum seeker known to German media as Farhad N.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz condemned the “awful” attack and promised severe consequences.
“From my point of view it is quite clear: this attacker cannot count on any mercy, he must be punished and he must leave the country,” Scholz told reporters.
Shoes, glasses and the infant stroller were left littered in the wake of the suspected attack, which follows a deadly car rampage at a Christmas market in the eastern city of Magdeburg in December.
‘Looked deliberate’
Witness Alexa Graef described how the car’s deliberate impact on the crowd left her “shocked.”
Graef, whose office had a view of the intersection where the incident occurred, said, “I hope it’s the last time I see anything like that.”
Police led sniffer dogs around the cream-colored Mini Cooper as they conducted an inspection.
After police fired on the car once without striking the 24-year-old Afghan asylum seeker, who lived in Munich, he was taken into custody on the spot, according to police.
Authorities said they have “indications of an extremist motive” and that the regional prosecutor’s office has been given control of the investigation.
A representative for the fire department told AFP earlier Thursday that a number of the injured were “seriously injured, some of them in a life-threatening condition”.
According to reports, the suspect entered Germany in 2016, during the peak of the European migration wave.
He was not scheduled for deportation, but German authorities reportedly denied his asylum request.
Markus Soeder, the premier of the state of Bavaria, told reporters that “it looks like this was an attack” and that the incident was “just terrible.”
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“We need to demonstrate our resolve that something will change in Germany, as this is not the first incident,” Soeder, whose CSU party is affiliated with the conservative CDU nationally, stated.
“This is more evidence that we cannot continue to defend ourselves against attacks.”
Inflamed debate
Following recent attacks, the CDU/CSU alliance, which polls indicate is expected to win the election in less than a week, has demanded stricter immigration restrictions.
Scholz’s administration was under pressure to tighten asylum regulations and expedite deportations, including to Afghanistan, even prior to the election.
The government was “in the process of doing so in other cases… not just once, but on an ongoing basis,” according to Scholz, who said on Thursday that the returns were “complicated” to organize.
Following a number of similar incidents, most recently in the Bavarian city of Aschaffenburg last month, this most recent incident occurs in the midst of an already contentious immigration and security debate.
There, a knife attack on kindergarten-aged children killed two people, including a two-year-old boy.
A 28-year-old Afghan man who authorities claim had a history of mental illness was taken into custody by police following the attack.
A car crashed into a Christmas market in the eastern city of Magdeburg in December, killing six people and injuring hundreds more.
Following that attack, a Saudi man was taken into custody; according to Interior Minister Nancy Faeser, he also seemed mentally ill.
In a statement, Frank Werneke, president of the Verdi union that organized the protest on Thursday, said, “We are deeply upset and shocked at the awful incident.”
The incident occurred just before US Vice President JD Vance was scheduled to arrive in the city for the yearly Munich Security Conference, which begins on Friday.
Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, is also scheduled to arrive in Munich, where he will have important discussions with US officials about a potential resolution to the conflict with Russia.
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