After the foiled suspected terrorist attack on the Israeli Consulate General in Munich, the authorities are continuing to investigate the background. Videos from drivers, passers-by and residents are likely to play a role. The Munich police had called for recordings of the incident to be made available to investigators via an upload portal.
It has since become known that the 18-year-old Austrian from Salzburg, who was killed in a shootout with police on Thursday morning, was being investigated on suspicion of being religiously radicalized. The man with Bosnian roots was also banned from carrying weapons, which would not have expired until 2028 at the earliest, according to Salzburg police.
The Salzburg public prosecutor’s office had closed investigations against him
The then 17-year-old had come to the attention of the authorities after threatening classmates and causing bodily harm. In this context, he was accused of involvement in a terrorist organization, it was said. According to information from the Austrian news agency APA, propaganda from the terrorist organization Islamic State was found on his cell phone. However, the Salzburg public prosecutor’s office closed the investigation in April 2023, police said. Since then, the 18-year-old has not come to the attention of the police again.
After the shootout in Munich, his home in the Salzburg region was also searched. Numerous officers went to Neumarkt am Wallersee to secure evidence and traces. A Salzburg police spokesman told the German Press Agency. The 18-year-old had lived in Neumarkt with his parents. The house and the neighboring buildings were evacuated for safety reasons, said the police spokesman. In retrospect, however, it turned out that there was no danger.
Central Office for Combating Extremism and Terrorism investigates
On the German side, the Bavarian Central Office for Combating Extremism and Terrorism (ZET) has taken over further investigations. They assume that a planned terrorist attack on the consulate was carried out.
“The background to the crime still needs to be clarified,” said Bavaria’s Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann (CSU). However, “if someone parks here within sight of the Israeli Consulate General, then walks around this Consulate General with a gun and starts shooting,” that is “certainly or with high probability not a coincidence.”
Söder: Connection with assassination anniversary possible
Bavaria’s Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) spoke of a serious suspicion in view of the simultaneous anniversary of the Olympic attack in Munich. “There may be a connection. It still needs to be clarified,” he said near the crime scene.
In the evening, he said on ZDF’s “Heute Journal” that we would have to wait for the results of the investigation to be able to judge what was behind the crime. The Bavarian emergency services had done a very good job. “The police took action very courageously, very cautiously, but also very consistently and eliminated the perpetrator and nothing happened.”
In the terrorist attack at the Olympic Games in Munich on September 5, 1972, Palestinian terrorists shot two men and took nine hostages in the Olympic Village. Around 18 hours later, a rescue attempt ended with the deaths of the nine Israeli hostages, a police officer and five of the attackers.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) wrote on Platform X on Thursday evening: “The rapid reaction of the emergency services in Munich may have prevented something atrocitable from happening today. … I say it very clearly: anti-Semitism and Islamism have no place here.”
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