Munich car attack latest: Suspect had Islamist motive police suggest as child among 36 injured – UK Times

Here are the key points from the press conference held by police on Friday morning.

• A 24-year-old Afghan, who arrived in Germany as an asylum-seeker in 2016, and said “Allahu Akbar” or “God is great” after his arrest.
• The suspected attacker admitted to driving into the crowd deliberately.
• Police now suspect an Islamist motivation behind the attack, but there is no evidence that the perpetrator was a member of an Islamist organisation. Yesterday, the Munich public prosecutor’s office named the detained person as Farhad Noori.
• A child is among the two people who were seriously injured, police confirmed. According to BR24, this child was a two-year-old girl.
• A total of 36 people among the demonstrators were injured.
• The suspect said goodbye to relatives before the crash. “Tomorrow I won’t be here anymore,” he told family members.
• The suspect’s phones and electronics have been seized. His communications, mostly in Arabic, give indications of Islamist tendencies, they said.
• The suspect is under investigation on 36 counts of attempted murder as well as bodily harm and dangerous interference with road traffic.

Farhad Noori confessed during questioning that he had deliberately driven into the demonstration, the senior public prosecutor said.

Police currently believe an Islamist motivation behind the attack is the most likely.

There is no suggestion that any accomplices were involved in the attack, authorities said.

But police are looking into whether anyone else knew about the attack.

German authorities are presuming that the Munich car attack was motivated by Islamist extremism.

But there is no reason to believe the perpetrator was a member of any Islamist organisation.

Islamist tendencies were visible in his communications.

Police have offered an update on their investigation into Farhad Noori, the driver of the Mini which drove into a crowd of demonstrators.

He said goodbye to his relatives before the car attack took place. “Tomorrow I won’t be here anymore,” he told family members.

Noori was interviewed for two hours, and police are looking through his electronics and phones. Most of his communication is in Arabic.

“We were not able to find anything in his apartment and we were not able to find anything that specifically pointed to preparations for this attack,” police said according to a Sky News translation.

A child was seriously injured in Thursday’s Munich car incident, believed to be an attack, police said in a Friday morning press conference.

A total of 36 people were injured in the attack, deputy police chief Christian Huber said.

On Friday morning, police in Munich reinstalled traffic measures around the site of Thursday’s suspected car attack.

It was unclear why the cordon was put back in place after they had lifted the cordon from the crime scene last night.

Police announced the scene was closed at around 9:30am, before it was reopened around 45 minutes later.

German authorities will give an update in a press conference later this morning.

It comes with the motive behind the attack still unclear. It is also unclear whether the detained suspect has been charged yet.

The conference will take place at 11am local time (10am GMT).

Soon after the crime, Bavarian interior minister told reporters that Farhad N, the man suspected of being behind the Munich incident, was known to police due to shoplifting and drug offences.

Later that evening, the police corrected this information, according to Der Spiegel.

Farhad N was reportedly only a witness to these proceedings, having previously worked as a store detective.