Investigators were yesterday to question a driver who allegedly rammed a car into a crowd in the southwestern German city of Mannheim, killing two people and injuring 11.
Andreas Stenger, head of the State Criminal Police Office, told German news agency DPA that police hoped the interview would lead to information about a motive for Monday’s attack. Mourners left flowers in the city’s center to honor the victims.
The suspect is a 40-year-old German man from the nearby state of Rhineland-Palatinate who was detained and is in a hospital after being injured, State Minister of the Interior Minister Thomas Strobl of Baden-Wurttemberg, which includes Mannheim, told DPA on Monday.
Photo: AFP
Strobl later told reporters in Mannheim that “as far as the specific motivation of the crime is concerned, we have no indication of an extremist or religious background at the moment. The motivation could rather be based in the person of the perpetrator himself.”
German police and prosecutors told a joint news conference on Monday that the driver intentionally rammed his car into people and is being investigated for murder and attempted murder. Five of the 11 injured were seriously wounded.
Police and prosecutors said the driver shot himself in the mouth when he was arrested and had to undergo medical treatment at a hospital.
While the driver did not seem to be ideologically motivated, prosecutors said the man, whose identity was not revealed in line with German privacy rules, has several previous convictions.
He served a short prison sentence for assault more than 10 years ago, and was convicted for drunken driving. He had also been investigated for a hate speech offense on Facebook in 2018, for which he was fined, prosecutors said, without giving further details.
Investigators are also looking into the possibility that the driver might suffer from psychological problems.
Cars have been used as deadly weapons in several acts of violence in recent months in Germany.
Police said earlier that “indications of a second perpetrator cannot be confirmed at this stage of the investigation.” They said there was no more danger to the public.
Police spokesperson Stefan Wilhelm said a vehicle drove into people on Paradeplatz, a pedestrian street downtown, around noon, when workers come out for lunchbreaks.
Local media reported a carnival market was taking place, meaning more visitors than usual in Mannheim, which has a population of 326,000.
Mannheim University Hospital said they were treating three people, two adults and a child, dpa reported.
The other wounded people were taken to different hospitals in the region.
Images from the scene showed parts of the downtown area cordoned off, with a heavy police presence. Officers gathered round a badly damaged black car.
Friedrich Merz, who likely would become Germany’s next chancellor, wrote on X that “the incident — as well as the terrible acts of the past few months — is an urgent reminder that we must do everything we can to prevent such acts.”
Outgoing German Chancellor Olaf Scholz wrote on X that “we mourn with the families of the victims of a senseless act of violence.”
Last month, a two-year-old girl and her mother died two days after they were injured in a car-ramming attack on a union demonstration in Munich. A 24-year-old Afghan man who came to Germany as an asylum-seeker was arrested, and prosecutors said he appeared to have an Islamic extremist motive.
Last year, six people were killed and more than 200 injured when a car slammed into a Christmas market in the eastern city of Magdeburg. The suspect, who was arrested, is a 50-year-old doctor originally from Saudi Arabia who had expressed anti-Muslim views and support for the far-right, anti-immigrant Alternative For Germany party.
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