Updated 6.50 pm

The van used in yesterday's attack is towed away last night Source: DPA/PA Images

GERMAN AUTHORITIES INVESTIGATING a deadly van ramming attack are focusing on the reported mental health problems of the driver, as the city of Muenster mourned for the two people killed on a sunny afternoon at an open-air restaurant.

“There are strong indications at the moment that this was a lone perpetrator and that there were no links to the terror scene,” federal Interior Minister Horst Seehofer told reporters at the site of yesterday’s attacks, where local people laid flowers in memory of the victims.

Far-right opponents of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s refugee policy had suggested in the immediate aftermath of the attack it might be an Islamist act of terror, while some media reported the killer had links to right-wing extremist organisations.

But there are “no indications of a political motive,” said Hajo Kuhlisch, chief of police in the western city where the attack took place.

Rather, he added, “the motive and origins (of the crime) lie within the perpetrator,” a 48-year-old German identified as Jens R. who shot himself dead immediately after the crime.

A source close to the investigation told AFP there was a record of incidents related to the perpetrator’s impaired mental health since 2015, and that he had talked of suicide in late March.

Prosecutors said he faced allegations of threats, property damage and fraud in 2015 and 2016, all of which were dropped.

And broadcaster NTV reported he had threatened family members with an axe in 2014 and 2015.

The two victims killed in Muenster were a 51-year-old woman and a 65-year-old man, both from northern Germany.

As well as the dead, police said 20 were injured — some life-threateningly.

Police officers outside the city's cathedral. Source: DPA/PA Images

The foreign ministry in the Netherlands said two of those hurt were Dutch, one of whom was in a critical condition.

In the van, police found the gun used by the driver to kill himself, a blank-firing pistol and some powerful fireworks.

A search of the man’s Muenster apartment late last night turned up more fireworks and a deactivated AK47 assault rifle.

Police have appealed to the public for information, setting up a website where people can upload photos and videos.

‘No Islamist connection’

Armed police cordoned off a wide area around the scene of the attack, urging residents to avoid the city centre to allow investigators to get to work amid initial fears the country had suffered another extremist assault.

“I was on my way home through the city here and saw firefighters and ambulances everywhere. I thought something really terrible must have happened,” said Hubert Reckermann, a local man in his late 60s.

“It’s still unbelievable for me, but these days anything can happen. You can’t really defend yourself against people with psychiatric problems.”

Germany has been on especially high alert for jihadist attacks after several claimed by the Islamic State group.

But “we know with high probability that it was a lone perpetrator, it was a German, not a refugee,” said North Rhine-Westphalia state interior minister Herbert Reul.

“We know with high probability that there was no Islamist background” to the attack, inflicted as locals and tourists enjoyed a sunny spring day, he added.

Flowers at the location of the van attack. Source: DPA/PA Images

‘Deeply shaken’

Merkel said she was “deeply shaken” by the incident and pledged that “everything possible will be done to determine what was behind this act and to help the victims”.

The presidents of Russia and France, Vladimir Putin and Emmanuel Macron, as well as Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy sent their condolences.

The attack is the latest in a string across Europe in which vehicles have been used to attack crowds of people in public places.

In a Berlin assault in December 2016, Tunisian asylum-seeker Anis Amri hijacked a truck and murdered its Polish driver before killing another 11 people and wounding dozens more by ploughing the heavy vehicle through a Christmas market.

He was shot dead by Italian police in Milan four days later while on the run.

In France, the Islamic State group claimed a 2016 truck attack in Nice on its July 14 national holiday that killed 86.

And in Spain, the jihadists also claimed a rampage along Barcelona’s Las Ramblas boulevard in August 2017 that killed 14 and left more than 100 injured.

© – AFP, 2018</s>The man who drove a camper van into a group of people sitting outside a restaurant in the German city of Muenster on Saturday acted alone and appears to have had mental health problems, the regional interior minister said yesterday. The attacker had ties to far-right groups, but whether it played a role in the attack was unclear, German broadcaster ZDF reported, citing unnamed security sources.

The man killed two people when he plowed the vehicle into people seated at tables outside the Grosser Kiepenkerl eatery, a popular destination for tourists in the old town of the university city in western Germany. He then shot himself dead.

"We now know it was in all likelihood a lone perpetrator, a German," Herbert Reul, interior minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, home to Muenster, told reporters.

"There are lots of indications the person in focus had [psychological] abnormalities. This must be carefully investigated," he said after paying his respects to the victims with national Interior Minister Horst Seehofer and state premier Armin Laschet.

There was no evidence of any link to militancy and the suspect was not a refugee, Reul said.

Soon after the violent attack, Germany's far-right politicians blamed it on refugees, and shared anti-immigrant and Islamophobic messages on social media.

Far-right extremists reportedly stepped up their attacks against refugees in the country. More than 200 attacks on refugee shelters by far-right groups were reported across Germany in 2017. Far-right offenses in Germany have spiked to their highest level since 2001, amid growing anti-refugee and anti-migrant sentiment in the country triggered by propaganda from far-right parties.

The rise of the right-wing populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which came in third in Germany's general election with nearly 13 percent of the vote, has compounded tensions. Founded more than four years ago as a eurosceptic party, the AfD has since lurched to the right, adopting a staunchly anti-Islam and anti-foreigner party platform. The AfD has enjoyed a surge of support in the wake of Chancellor Merkel's controversial decision two years ago to open the nation's borders to refugees stranded in Hungary.

In another example of the rising far-right threat in Germany, David Sonboly, 18, who killed nine people at a Munich shopping center in 2016, was motivated by extremist right-wing political ideology and anti-immigrant sentiments, investigators revealed a year later. Contrary to police findings, investigators believed that the motivation of the attacker was disregarded and underestimated, according to the German public broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW) in October 2017. German Police had concluded that Sonboly was a deranged lone gunman obsessed with mass killings who drew no inspiration from right-wing militancy. However, it was later revealed that the gunman was obsessed with far-right extremist Anders Behring Breivik, whose massacre of 77 people in Norway came exactly five years before his own shooting rampage.</s>German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer said to NTV channel on Sunday that the ramming in the town of Muenster is not terror-related, adding that there was evidence that the attacker acted alone. Still, he stressed that the attack should be thoroughly investigated, Sputnik International reports.

The police have discovered a moulage of the AK-47 rifle and fireworks at the house of the 48-year-old perpetrator of the ramming attack that occurred in Germany's Muenster yesterday, a joint statement issued by the city's Prosecutor's Office and the police says.

"There is still no information about the potential motive behind the crime. The comprehensive investigation is ongoing…" the statement reads.</s>MUENSTER, Germany: The man who drove a camper van into a group of people sitting outside a restaurant in the German city of Muenster on Saturday acted alone and appears to have had mental health problems, the regional interior minister said on Sunday.

The man killed two people when he ploughed the vehicle into people seated at tables outside the Grosser Kiepenkerl eatery, a popular destination for tourists in the old town of the university city in western Germany. He then shot himself dead.

"We now know it was in all likelihood a lone perpetrator, a German," Herbert Reul, interior minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, home to Muenster, told reporters.

"There are lots of indications the person in focus had (psychological) abnormalities. This must be carefully investigated," he said after paying his respects to the victims with national Interior Minister Horst Seehofer and state premier Armin Laschet.

There was no evidence of any link to Islamist militancy and the suspect was not a refugee, Reul said.

Broadcaster ZDF said police were searching his apartment and that he had contact with far-right extremists, but there was no evidence thus far that he was a far-right extremist himself.

In Berlin in December 2016, a Tunisian whose request for asylum was turned down and who had links to Islamist militants hijacked a truck and ploughed into a crowded marketplace. Twelve people, including the man driving the truck when it was hijacked, were killed.

Police said on Sunday they were still investigating possible motives and forensic investigators were scouring the scene of the attack for clues.

Seehofer described the attack as a "cowardly and brutal crime". He, Laschet and Reul laid flowers in central Muenster and paid their respects to the victims of the attack.

"We have again experienced that ... absolute security is unfortunately not possible," Seehofer said, adding that the government would do everything possible to protect citizens.

Police said the perpetrator was aged 48. The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported in its online edition that he was Jens R., who resided some 2 km (1.2 miles) from the crime scene.

A 51-year-old woman from the Lueneburg area in northern Germany and a 65-year-old man from the Borken area near Muenster were killed.

Chancellor Angela Merkel said in a statement she was "deeply shaken". In the months prior to the Berlin assault, Germany suffered a number of small-scale Islamist militant attacks, which some linked to Merkel's decision in 2015 to open the country's borders to an influx of migrants, many of them refugees from conflicts in the Middle East.

Saturday's attack in Muenster came a year to the day of a truck attack in Stockholm in which a suspected Islamist militant sympathiser links killed five people.

On Saturday evening, the White House issued a statement sending U.S. President Donald Trump's "thoughts and prayers" to the families of those killed.

French President Emmanuel Macron tweeted: "All my thoughts are with the victims of the attack in Muenster. France shares in Germany's suffering".</s>Muenster attacker was lone German with mental health problems, says minister

Police block a street near a place where a vehicle drove into a group of people killing several and injured many in Muenster Germany, April 7, 2018. — Reuters picMUENSTER, April 8 — The man who drove a camper van into a group of people sitting outside a restaurant in the German city of Muenster yesterday acted alone and appears to have had mental health problems, the regional interior minister said today.

The man killed two people when he ploughed the vehicle into people seated at tables outside the Grosser Kiepenkerl eatery, a popular destination for tourists in the old town of the university city in western Germany. He then shot himself dead.

“We now know it was in all likelihood a lone perpetrator, a German,” Herbert Reul, interior minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, home to Muenster, told reporters.

“There are lots of indications the person in focus had (psychological) abnormalities. This must be carefully investigated,” he said after paying his respects to the victims with national Interior Minister Horst Seehofer and state premier Armin Laschet.

There was no evidence of any link to Islamist militancy and the suspect was not a refugee, Reul said.

The senior public prosecutor in Muenster, Elke Adomeit, said the perpetrator, who German media named as Jens R., was known to police for making threats, damaging property, a hit-and-run traffic accident, and fraud.

“All proceedings (against him) were discontinued,” Adomeit said.

Muenster police chief Hans-Joachim Kuhlisch said investigators had searched four apartments overnight belonging to the man, who was 48.

“You will understand that with four apartments - two in eastern Germany, two in Muenster - we can’t now say conclusively that we won’t find anything,” he said.

However, investigators found no signs of a political motive in their initial searches of the apartments and of several cars and a container belonging to the man, Kuhlisch said.

In Berlin in December 2016, a Tunisian whose request for asylum was turned down and who had links to Islamist militants hijacked a truck and ploughed into a crowded marketplace. Twelve people, including the man driving the truck when it was hijacked, were killed.

Police said on Sunday they were still investigating possible motives and forensic investigators were scouring the scene of the attack for clues.

Seehofer described the attack as a “cowardly and brutal crime”. He, Laschet and Reul laid flowers in central Muenster and paid their respects to the victims of the attack.

“We have again experienced that ... absolute security is unfortunately not possible,” Seehofer said, adding that the government would do everything possible to protect citizens.

The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported in its online edition that the man, who it named as Jens R., resided some 2 km (1.2 miles) from the crime scene.

A 51-year-old woman from the Lueneburg area in northern Germany and a 65-year-old man from the Borken area near Muenster were killed.

Chancellor Angela Merkel said in a statement she was “deeply shaken”. In the months prior to the Berlin assault, Germany suffered a number of small-scale Islamist militant attacks, which some linked to Merkel’s decision in 2015 to open the country’s borders to an influx of migrants, many of them refugees from conflicts in the Middle East.

Yesterday’s attack in Muenster came a year to the day of a truck attack in Stockholm in which a suspected Islamist militant sympathiser links killed five people. — Reuters</s>German far-right lawmaker Beatrix von Storch is facing calls to resign after a series of controversial tweets about the van attack in Münster, including one post that falsely implied the perpetrator was a refugee.

Police reported that a 48-year-old German man who had previously expressed suicidal thoughts drove a van into a crowd in Münster on Saturday, killing two people before killing himself.

Before police had released any information about the man’s identity, von Storch — a deputy leader of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) — tweeted “wir schaffen das” in all caps, referencing Chancellor Angela Merkel’s mantra of “we’ll manage this” in defending her open-door refugee policy.

After authorities reported that the driver was German and that there was “no indication” of a link to Islamic terror, von Storch tweeted that the man was an “imitator of Islamist terror.”

The general secretary of Angela Merkel’s conservative Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), demanded on Monday that von Storch give up her seat in the Bundestag.

“If Mrs. von Storch has a shred of decency and reason, she should give up her mandate in parliament,” Markus Blume said, according to German media, adding that anyone who exploits the Münster attack in the way that von Storch did has “no business in a parliament in Germany.”

Herbert Reul, interior minister of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia where Münster is located, told radio broadcaster Deutschlandfunk that von Storch’s behavior was “irresponsible,” and said “one-sided hate-mongering” was harmful to the cohesion of society.

Von Storch’s comments also came amid a terror scare on Sunday, when Berlin authorities detained six men suspected of planning an attack on Berlin’s half-marathon event. But the suspects could be released after police found no weapons or explosives during searches, a police spokesperson told Die Welt, adding that authorities remain on “high alert.”

German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer on Monday warned that the country could face terror attacks in the future.

“We still have a very tense security situation in the Federal Republic of Germany,” Seehofer told German media. “That means: An attack is to be expected at any time.”

Seehofer has been a vocal critic of Merkel’s immigration policies and recently faced criticism for claiming Islam “does not belong in Germany.“</s>German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer said to NTV channel on Sunday that the ramming in the town of Muenster is not terror-related, adding that there was evidence that the attacker acted alone. Still, he stressed that the attack should be thoroughly investigated.

The police have discovered a moulage of the AK-47 rifle and fireworks at the house of the 48-year-old perpetrator of the ramming attack that occurred in Germany's Muenster yesterday, a joint statement issued by the city's Prosecutor's Office and the police says.

"There is still no information about the potential motive behind the crime. The comprehensive investigation is ongoing…" the statement reads.

It also adds that "an unusable AK-47 rifle" and fireworks had been found during the search operation at the perpetrator's house, while another batch of detonators and a gun were found in the van that was used in the attack.

A van rammed into a group of seated people at Kiepenkerl cafe in the western Germany town of Muenster on April 7 at 3:30 p.m. local time, killing two — a 51-year-old woman and 65 year-old-man and injuring 20. The perpetrator killed himself upon performing the attack.

According to the German Bild outlet, the perpetrator was a 48-year-old mentally unstable citizen of Germany, who had had no previous conviction, though he had already performed suicide attempts.

The police have preserved a cordon in the area, while investigators are still collecting the evidence.</s>German authorities investigating a deadly van ramming attack focused yesterday on mental health problems of the driver, as the city of Muenster mourned for the two people killed on a sunny afternoon at an open-air restaurant



A man lights a candle at the square where the attack took place. Pic/AFP

After the deadly ramming attack in Germany that killed two people in an open-air restaurant, the German authorities are investigating the killings by focusing on the mental health of the driver. The city if Muenster mourned for the two people who died.

"There are strong indications at the moment that this was a lone perpetrator and that there were no links to the terror scene," said federal Interior Minister Horst Seehofer at the site of Saturday's attacks, where locals laid flowers in memory of the victims. There are "no indications of a political motive," said Hajo Kuhlisch, chief of police in the western city where the attack took place.

Rather, he added, "the motive and origins (of the crime) lie within the perpetrator," a 48-year-old German identified as Jens R who shot himself dead immediately after the crime. A source close to the investigation said there was a record of incidents related to the perpetrator's impaired mental health since 2015, and that he had talked of suicide in late March. And broadcaster NTV reported he had threatened family members with an axe in 2014 and 2015.

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The inputs from agencies have been sourced from a third party syndicated feed. Mid-day accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability, trustworthiness, reliability and data of the text</s>Stephan Mayer, parliamentary state secretary in Germany's Interior Ministry, which is headed by Bavaria's Horst Seehofer, said Monday he expected an urgent law change to deny passports to what he termed jihadis with double citizenship.

In remarks to the Funke media chain following Sunday's arrests of six suspected Islamists in Berlin, Mayer also hinted that Georgia and Armenia could be added to Germany's list of countries where would-be asylum seekers are presumed safe.

Mayer, like Seehofer, belongs to Bavaria's Christian Social Union (CSU) which forms part of the Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative bloc within her new coalition government with center-left Social Democrats (SPD).

The Bonn-based Center for Political Education (bpb) says census figures on Germans who hold second or more passports are inexact, ranging from 1.9 up to 4.3 million.

Topping the list are dual German citizens with Russian, Polish and Turkish statehood as well.

The sum includes 1 million resident young adults who since a slight citizenship liberalization in 1999 have opted for German statehood by renouncing the nationality of non-German parents.

Mayer, previously a strident "law and order" advocate for Merkel's conservative bloc in the previous Bundestag parliament, told the Funke Media Group Monday that confiscation of German passports of alleged jihadis was his "pressing goal."

Seehofer, who recently took office in Berlin as Bavaria girds for a regional poll due in October, has often urged Merkel to win back voters who defected to the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) in Germany's federal election last September.

The AfD's program includes calls to retract German citizenship within 10 years of its acquisition in cases of "substantial criminality," "participation in a terror organization" and "belonging to criminal clans," even if the person ended up stateless.

Article 16 of Germany's Basic Law states that "No German may be deprived of his citizenship. Citizenship may be lost only pursuant to a law, and against the will of the person affected only if he does not become stateless as a result."

A key advocate of this during the constitution's drafting in 1948 was Hermann Mangoldt, a Christian Democrat and jurist from what is now Germany's northern region of Schleswig-Holstein.

Mangoldt sought to block any repeat of the 1933 Nazi-German denaturalization law that was used, for example in 1936 to strip the-then exiled author Thomas Mann and his wife Katia of their German citizenship.

Germany's current Passport Act, however, does allow German authorities to deny the issuance of a passport to a German applicant in situations likely to endanger national security, avert prosecution or avoid tax obligations.

Opposition Greens parliamentary group co-leader Katrin Göring-Eckardt described as "important" a call from the Central Council of Jews in Germany to tackle anti-Semitic behavior among migrants.

Current law must be consistently applied, she said, but added that education to change attitudes rather than tougher penalties was more effective.
German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer rejects claims that yesterday's car attack was an act of either Islamic or far-right terrorism, saying the attacker was not politically motivated.