German police yesterday said they did not see an extremist motive behind a ramming attack with a van that claimed two lives and placed the driver’s mental health issues in the foreground.
There are “no indications of a political motive,” Muenster police president Hajo Kuhlisch said.
Rather, “the motive and origins [of the crime] lie within the perpetrator himself,” he added.
Photo: AP / Ina Fassbender / DPA
The man, whose name was not released, killed two people and injured 20 others on Saturday afternoon outside a bar in the city’s old town before shooting himself to death inside the van.
The 48-year-old man, whose name was not released, was well-known to police and had a history of run-ins with the law, German prosecutors said yesterday, adding that they believe he acted alone.
He was a Muenster resident and apparently well off.
Photo: AFP
His four apartments — two in Muenster and two in Saxony — and several cars had been searched thoroughly, but that police were still investigating the evidence and it was too early to speculate about the van driver’s motive, Kuhlisch said.
Local media have identified the man as an industrial designer who had been suffering from psychological problems, but police would not confirm those details.
Far-right opponents of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s refugee policy suggested in the immediate aftermath of the attack it might be an Muslim militant terror attack, while some media reported the driver had links to right-wing extremist organizations.
Prosecutors said he had faced allegations of threats, property damage and fraud in 2015 and 2016, all of which were dropped.
A source close to the investigation said that incidents related to the perpetrator’s mental health had affected his family since 2015, and that he said late last month that he wanted to commit suicide.
Broadcaster NTV reported he had threatened family members with an axe in 2014 and 2015.
Despite investigators’ increased certainty about the perpetrator’s mental health, “it will take a few more hours and days” before the case is fully cleared up, North Rhine-Westphalia Minister of the Interior Herbert Reul said yesterday.
The two people killed were a 51-year-old woman and a 65-year-old man, both from northern Germany.
The Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs said two of those injured were Dutch, one of whom was in a critical condition.
Police have appealed to the public for information, setting up a Web site where people can upload photographs and videos.
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