Hamburg attacker a ‘known Islamist’

Russia arrests 7 for preparing Saint Petersburg attacks

HAMBURG, July 29, (AFP): The suspect who killed a man with a knife in Hamburg supermarket was a known Islamist, German officials said Saturday, adding that his motives remained unclear as he also suffered from psychological problems.

Identified as a 26-year-old man of Palestinian origin, he had arrived in Germany in 2015, but was due to be deported as his application for asylum was rejected.

The assault risks reopening a bitter debate over refugees two months before general elections, putting pressure on Chancellor Angela Merkel over her decision to open Germany’s borders in 2015, letting more than a million asylum seekers in.

“He was known as an Islamist but not a jihadist,” said the German port city’s interior minister Andy Grote, noting “there are indications of radicalisation”.

But the minister stressed that while there could have been an Islamist motive for the attack, the suspect also suffered from “psychological instability”.

Police piecing together the assault on Friday said the man had entered the supermarket and took a kitchen knife measuring around 20 cm from the shelves.

He later wounded two other men in the supermarket before fleeing, slashing others along the way, before he was overpowered by courageous passers-by.

Witnesses told AFP the man had brandished the bloodied knife, shouting “Allahu Akbar” (“God is Greatest”) as he fled the scene, but that bystanders gave chase and flung chairs to stop him.

If confirmed as an Islamist attack, it would be the first in Germany since Tunisian Anis Amri drove a truck into crowds at a Berlin Christmas market on Dec 19, killing 12 and injuring 48.

Germany has been on high alert over the threat of a jihadist assault since Amri’s rampage in Berlin, for which the Islamic State group claimed responsibility.

Like the Hamburg suspect, Amri was

which Madrid deems illegal.

“By presenting this appeal the government is fulfilling its duty to make sure the law is upheld,” Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy told a news conference.

“Catalan society needs to be protected due to have been deported after his asylum request was turned down, but the process was held up by a lack of identity documents.

News website Spiegel Online named the supermarket attacker as Ahmad A, while officials said he had not filed an appeal against Germany’s decision to reject his asylum application.

In fact, he had helped to obtain documents to facilitate his departure from Germany.

On the day of the attack, he had even gone to the authorities to ask if the identify papers had arrived. Police chief Ralf Meyer said the suspect was “almost exemplary” in this aspect.

Heavily armed police who searched a Hamburg asylum seekers’ shelter where the man lived did not find any weapons.

At the asylum shelter in a leafy suburb, the suspect’s neighbour, who gave his name only as Mohamed, described him as “very intelligent”.

“He was always helping other asylum seekers with their paperwork,” the 31-year-old Syrian refugee told AFP.

But in recent weeks, he “had a crisis, he bought Islamist clothes and read the Koran very loudly in his room”.

“And three weeks after Ramadan, he had another crisis. He started to drink heavily and smoke joints ... he was sad that his mother was ill and that his asylum request was rejected,” recounted Mohamed.

MOSCOW:

Also:

FSB security agency said Friday it had detained seven nationals from who were “preparing terrorist attacks” in which suffered a metro bombing in April.

Those held were suspected of planning to hit “the railway system and major public gathering places” in Russia’s second city, the FSB said in a statement.

Russia has stepped up security since a suicide bomb attack in the Saint Petersburg

from a radical and divisive project which is being imposed on them by force,” he added.

“There will not be any referendum on October 1...this is not constitutional and it is not legal.”

Russian sailors stand on the deck of a Tarantul class Corvette ‘Chuvashiya’ as it travels along the River Nevar in Saint Petersburg on July 28, during the Naval parade rehearsal. Naval Military Parade will take place in Saint Petersburg on

Russia’s Navy Day on July 30. (AFP)

subway killed 15 and injured dozens on April 3.

The alleged perpetrator, , was a 22-year-old Russian citizen who was born in ex-Soviet Kyrgyzstan in Central Asia.

The bombing was claimed by a littleknown group, the Imam

which experts say is linked to al-Qaeda.

PARIS:

France’s first jihadist de-radicalisation centre is set to close after less than a year, the government said on Friday.

The centre in Pontourny, western France, which opened in September 2016, was aimed at convincing radicalised 18 to 30-year-olds to turn their back on extremism. But Interior Minister

said the experiment “has not been conclusive”.

The centre can accommodate 25 people, but has never had more than nine residents, none of whom have completed the de-radicalisation programme. The centre has been empty since February.

BRATISLAVA:

Slovak police on Friday said they had charged far-right leader

with promoting extremism, over cheques he gave to poor families for a sum that carries symbolic weight in neo-Nazi circles.

Kotleba, who leads the KotlebaPeople’s Party Our Slovakia (LSNS), was charged on July 20 and accused of “promoting sympathy towards a movement aimed at suppressing fundamental rights and freedoms,” police spokesman

told AFP. Local media reported that the charge stemmed from a charity event LSNS organised in March.

According to the local pluska.sk news site, Kotleba handed out three larger-than-life cheques for 1,488 euros ($1,748) at the event. The number 1,488 is a well-known neo-Nazi symbol.

The reform means that any piece of legislation in Catalonia can now be adopted quickly, with fewer checks and balances. (AFP)

Remains found on Mont Blanc:

Body parts that could belong to passengers killed in one or other of two Air India plane crashes more than 50 years ago have been found on Mont Blanc in the French Alps, sources said Friday.

Daniel Roche, who is fascinated by air plane accidents and has spent years combing the Bossons Glacier looking for remains, made the discovery on Thursday.

“I had never found any significant human remains before,” he told AFP. This time however he had found a hand and the upper part of a leg.

In January 1966, an Air India Boeing 707 from Bombay to New York crashed near Mont Blanc’s summit, killing all 117 people on board.

Another Air India flight crashed on the mountain in 1950, killing 48 people.

Roche said the remains he had found could be of a female passenger from the 1966 Boeing 707 flight, as he also discovered one of the plane’s four jet engines.

Roche contacted local emergency services in the Chamonix valley who took the remains down the mountain by helicopter and they were due to be examined by experts. (AFP)