Munich attacker was ‘failed asylum seeker who shared Islamist posts before ploughing Mini into crowd injuring 28’
THE suspect who rammed a crowd in Munich, injuring at least 28 people including children, was a failed asylum seeker who posted Islamist social media content before the attack, reports claim.
A 24-year-old Afghan man is said to have "sped up" in a Mini Cooper before ploughing into around 1,500 Verdi demonstrators - a Berlin-based German trade union - in the Bavarian capital.
Police said the suspect is an asylum seeker from Afghanistan who, the region's interior minister added, was known to cops in relation to drug and theft incidents.
News website say the suspect is a Kabul-born man named Farhad N, born in 2001.
He is alleged to have posted Islamist content on social media before the heinous incident.
Farhad N arrived in Germany as an asylum seeker in December 2016 as an "unaccompanied minor" and was taken into the care of a youth welfare facility, having previously been in Italy, German Press Agency reports.
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He applied for asylum which was rejected in 2017 and tried to appeal it - without success.
Farhad N was later granted what's called a toleration permit, which means his deportation was suspended, Spiegel claims, but he has been required to leave the country since autumn of 2020.
Extremism and terror cops are probing the Munich car plough after the Minister-President of Bavaria, Markus Söder, labelled the shocking incident a "suspected attack".
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said that the suspect cannot hope for leniency and must leave the country.
He also spoke more widely about immigration in Germany.
Scholz said: "It is very important for me to get the message across that anyone who commits crimes in Germany will not only be severely punished and sent to prison, they must also expect that they will not be able to continue their stay in Germany."
He explained that this is "why" he got the government "to resume and carry out repatriations to Afghanistan, despite the lack of diplomatic relations".
The Chancellor added: "We have already organised such a flight with criminals.
"We are also in the process of doing this in other cases. And not just once, but on an ongoing basis.
"This perpetrator cannot count on any leniency, he must be punished and he must leave the country."
The shocking smash comes just before the Munich Security Conference starts on Friday, with US Vice President JD Vance and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky arriving later today.
Terrified witnesses said they heard gunshots at the scene, and Munich cops have since confirmed a shot was fired "during the arrest".
At least two people are said to be "very seriously injured" and a two-year-old has been critically injured, reports.
Munich cops have repeated that the driver was arrested but said they're unable to confirm reports that another person was involved.
Emotional pictures show shoes, umbrellas and bags discarded on the floor after victims presumably ran for their lives.
Other harrowing image shows a collapsed pram on the ground.
One eyewitness on the scene said the Mini hit a woman and child, explaining that they were "apparently lying under the car".
Around 10:30am Munich time the driver is said to have accelerated before ploughing into demonstrators.
On Thursday, some city employees went on strike to demonstrate for an eight per cent pay increase as well as higher bonuses and three additional days off.
Public organisations like those running sports centres, hospitals, daycare centres, and street cleaners all took part in the strike action.
The Munich Verdi managing director Claudia Weber who was waiting for the group to make their way to Königsplatz, a seven minute walk from where the incident took place, spoke on behalf of Verdi.
She told Bild: "It's all so unbelievable. We are totally shocked and are incredibly afraid for our colleagues who were part of the demonstration.
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"We heard that the car drove straight into the demonstration on purpose.
"Hopefully there will be no deaths."
Recent German terror attacks
THE terrifying Munich incident comes after the country has seen a wave of recent attacks.
In late January a two-year-old boy and a man were killed in a stabbing in Aschaffenburg, also in Bavaria.
This attack is thought to have been carried out by another Afghan asylum seeker whose application to stay in the country had been rejected.
In December, 2024, six people were killed and over 200 injured when a car rammed into a crowded Christmas market in Magdeburg sparking far-right protests.
On Thursday as the incident in Munich unfolded, an Afghan man named Sulaiman A went on trial in Stuttgart for a knife attack on May 31, 2024 in Mannheim.
The suspect with suspected jihadist motives is accused of launching the attack that killed a policeman and injured five others at an anti-Islam rally.
Bavaria's Prime Minister Markus Söder used this most recent incident and the wave of other attacks to call for change in the country.
The 58-year-old said: "It is suspected that this was an attack.
"The attack shows that something has to change in Germany - and quickly!
"An event in Aschaffenburg in January and now in ...It's simply enough."
Germany's approach to asylum seekers and security is facing huge scrutiny as the issues come to a head before the national election on February 23.