Here’s what we know about the events in which a marauding gunman killed 10 people in the German city of Hanau on Wednesday night.
Three separate shooting scenes
– 22:00 CET Gunfire heard near the Midnight shisha bar in the Heumarkt area of central Hanau, a city some 20 kilometers east of Frankfurt. Five people were shot dead, including a woman.
– The suspect later identified as 43-year-old Tobias R, then reportedly drove a car to the Kesselstadt neighbourhood and started shooting at the Arena Bar & Cafe. Three people were killed outside the building with one later succumbing to injuries. Witnesses reported hearing a dozen shots.
– Police tracked the getaway vehicle to the attacker’s home where he was found dead near the body of his mother.
The background
The alleged gunman posted a video days before the rampage that suggested a terror attack motivated by “a hostile attitude to foreigners,” according to Peter Beuth, the interior minister of the state of Hesse.
Beuth added that the alleged shooter was in legal possession of arms and was a sports marksman. His 72-year-old mother had been found dead with gunshot wounds at their home.00:34
Federal counter-terror prosecutors, who took over the case said the probe was of “particular importance” and there were “signs of a xenophobic motive.” Some of those killed appeared to be of Turkish origin.
In a rambling 24-page document, the alleged gunman wrote that people from over two dozen countries should be “destroyed”.
King’s College London counter-terrorism expert Peter Neumann tweeted, saying the text contained “various, but mostly extreme right views, with a do-it-yourself ideology cobbled together out of parts found on the internet”.
“The pattern is clear, and not at all new,” he added.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu confirmed that the consulate in Frankfurt and the embassy in Berlin were making efforts to obtain more information about the attack.
“According to the initial information, it was an attack with a racist motive, but we would need to wait for the (official) statement,” he told state television TRT.
The Hanau shootings is the latest in a string of far-right violence that has rocked Germany, in recent times. Less than a week ago 12 members of an extremist group were arrested by the police for plotting “shocking” large-scale attacks on mosques.
The Hanau shootings is the latest in a string of far-right violence that has rocked Germany in recent times. (Credit: AP)
In June 2019, Walter Luebcke, a conservative politician who advocated a liberal refugee policy, was shot dead at his home.
It was followed by an anti-Semitic gun attack in the eastern city of Halle on the holy day of Yom Kippur in October. Two people lost their lives in that incident.
The reaction
Chancellor Angela Merkel said that while the circumstances of the attack required a thorough investigation, the shootings exposed the “poison” of racism in German society.
“There is much to indicate that the perpetrator acted out of far-right extremist, racist motives. Out of hatred for people with other origins, other faiths or a different appearance.”
Source: CGTN
