Two shot dead during ‘anti-Semitic attack’ at German synagogue

TWO people have died after shots were fired outside a synagogue and into a kebab shop in an eastern German city.

An attacker tried to force his way into a synagogue in the city of Halle but did not get in as 70 to 80 people inside were observing Yom Kippur, Judaism’s holiest day, a local Jewish leader said.

Germany’s top security official described the shooting as an anti-Semitic attack, and said prosecutors believe there may be a farright motive.

Interior minister Horst Seehofer confirmed that a “heavily armed perpetrator” tried to force his way into the synagogue.

Police said in a tweet that the suspects fled in a car, and soon after reported that one person A man shooting from behind a car in the city of Halle, eastern Germany

had been arrested. They gave no information about that person, or the suspected target or targets, or why they thought the attack may have been carried out by multiple assailants.

The news magazine Der Spiegel reported that the suspected assailant is a 27-year-old man from the state of Saxony-Anhalt, where Halle is located.

A video clip broadcast by regional public broadcaster MDR showed a man in a helmet and an olive-coloured top getting out of a car and firing four shots from behind the vehicle from a long-barrelled gun.

It was not clear what he was shooting at.

Pictures from the scene showed a body lying in the street behind a police cordon.

The head of Halle’s Jewish community, Max Privorozki, said that a camera at the entrance of the synagogue showed a person trying to break into the building.

“The assailant shot several times at the door and also threw several Molotov cocktails, firecrackers or grenades to force his way in,” he said.

“But the door remained closed — God protected us. The whole thing lasted perhaps five to 10 minutes.”