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From /apa, September 6, 2024, 1:22 p.m.
Image: (APA/DPA/Matthias Balk)
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The crime scene at the Israeli Consulate General is still cordoned off.
Image: (APA/DPA/Matthias Balk)
MUNICH. In the attack on the Israeli Consulate General in Munich, the perpetrator, an 18-year-old Austrian, shot at several buildings and also entered buildings, according to police reports.
He fired “shots at the Nazi Documentation Center as well as at the Consulate General of the State of Israel and two other buildings,” police said.
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.
Police officers shot
The police in München The gunned down attacker was ordered by the police to put down his weapon before the fatal shootout. This was stated by police operations manager Christian Huber. The man, armed with a historical Swiss army weapon, had already been seen by a police patrol as he got out of his vehicle.
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Image: LUKAS BARTH-TUTTAS (APA/AFP/LUKAS BARTH-TUTTAS)
According to Huber, the 18-year-old fired nine shots – several at buildings, others at police officers. The magazine of the weapon, a decades-old Swiss army weapon, held six cartridges. A pack containing 50 rounds of ammunition was found in the 18-year-old’s car and was almost empty. The whereabouts of the rest of the ammunition is still the subject of investigations. A police officer and a passer-by each suffered acoustic trauma, and there were no other injuries.
“Not a classic Islamist”
In addition, further details about the 18-year-old, who was last living in Flachgau, became known on Friday. The man was not a “classic Islamist”. He attended a technical college for electrical engineering in Salzburg until spring 2024, was considered intelligent and was a good student.
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 older Category C weapon, which 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.
Video: Franz Ruf, the Director General for Public Security and Interior Minister Gerhard Karner
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.
Upright weapons ban
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 could not be reached at home or by phone and the family’s vehicle was 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 München was located.
The 18-year-old was banned from owning weapons by the Salzburg-Land district administration until 2028 and should therefore not have purchased the rifle he had bought. The Salzburg public prosecutor’s office had investigated him last year for terrorist association (Section 278b of the Criminal Code). His cell phone had been confiscated after he made a dangerous threat to his classmates and caused bodily harm. From the police’s point of view, “there was a suspicion that he had become religiously radicalized, was active online and was interested in explosives and weapons,” as the Salzburg State Police Directorate stated in a press release. 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 in April 2023.
Computer game with Islamist content
“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 said on Friday afternoon. Due to the suspicion, a court-approved search was carried out at the boy’s place of residence. 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.
Image: (APA/DANIEL SCHARINGER)
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Late Thursday afternoon, a police operation was underway at the residence of the Austrian, who was last registered in the Flachgau municipality of Neumarkt am Wallersee.
Image: (APA/DANIEL SCHARINGER)
“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.” Interviewing the young person’s classmates also did not produce any results that would have supported the suspicion of the crime. No other objects or data with a terrorist connection could be found, nor could plans, instructions or explosives for building bombs. The terror proceedings against the boy were therefore discontinued by the public prosecutor’s office on April 23, 2023.
However, the responsible administrative authority issued a weapons ban against the boy. The 18-year-old did not come to the attention of the police again until Thursday morning.
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 search was carried out at the 18-year-old’s residence in Neumarkt am Wallersee, which lasted well into the night. No other weapons or other suspicious objects – such as insignia of terrorist organizations or propaganda material – were discovered. The furnishings of the boy’s room, which he lived with his parents, were said to have shown no indication of any connection to Islamist ideology. The 18-year-old who was shot dead by the police did not look like an Islamist either. He had no beard and was wearing red pants and a multi-colored shirt when he went to Munich.
The areas around the crime scene were still cordoned off on Friday morning. “The streets are clear, but individual buildings or areas are still cordoned off,” said a Munich police spokesman. Evidence-gathering measures are still being carried out, and it is still a crime scene. The Bavarian State Criminal Police Office has set up a special commission called “Karolinenplatz,” named after the scene of the incident. The authority will take over the investigation from the Munich criminal police during the course of the day, a LKA spokesman said on Friday, according to dpa. The lead is being taken by the Central Office for Combating Extremism and Terrorism at the Munich Public Prosecutor’s Office.
Investigators believe that this was an attempted terrorist attack on the Israeli Consulate General. According to information from the “Bild” newspaper, the gunman drove up to the Nazi Documentation Center and fired a long gun at police posts in front of the building. Thursday marked the 52nd anniversary of the attack on the Israeli Olympic team at the 1972 Munich Games. According to police, protection for Jewish and Israeli institutions in Munich was increased again after the foiled attack on Thursday.
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