Diners die after van rams crowd
GERMANY: Two people were killed and 20 injured when a van ploughed into diners outside a restaurant in the German city of Munster yesterday.
Police said the driver shot himself dead after ramming the crowd.
According to a report by German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung, he was a 48-year-old German man with a history of mental health issues.
The newspaper said he had no terrorist background and was ‘‘psychologically disturbed’’.
The authorities identified the two fatal victims of the crash as a 51-year-old woman from Lueneburg County and a 65-yearold man from Broken County. Their names were not given as is customary in Germany.
Officers did confirm that a suspicious object was discovered in the van after the driver killed himself.
‘‘The suspect killed himself in the vehicle,’’ Andreas Bode, a police spokesman at the scene, said.
‘‘It’s far too early to speak of a [terrorist] attack right now. The investigation is ongoing.
‘‘There was possibly a suspicious object in the vehicle, but the investigation is ongoing into what kind of object it is.’’
He said six of the 20 injured were in a severe condition in hospital.
The incident came one year to the day after a terrorist truck attack in Stockholm, Sweden, which killed five people.
It also evoked memories of another vehicle attack in Berlin on December 19, 2016. On that occasion Anis Amri, a failed Tunisian asylum seeker with Islamist links, hijacked a truck and killed the driver before ploughing into a crowded marketplace and killing 11 more people.
Lino Baldi, who owns an Italian restaurant in Munster, near the scene, said the area was packed for a market.
It was the hottest day of the year so far and temperatures rising to 77F (25C) had also helped to draw a large crowd into the centre of the city, which has a population of 300,000.
The restaurant was near the Kiepenkerl statue, a local landmark which is a figure of a travelling peddler.
A witness told Germany’s NTV: ‘‘There was a bang and then screaming. The police arrived and got everyone out of here. There were a lot of people screaming. I’m angry, it’s cowardly to do something like this.’’
German television station ZDF reported that the driver had recently attempted suicide.
But Peter Nuessmeyer, a police spokesman, said he could not confirm German media reports that the perpetrator was a middle-aged German man with psychological issues.
Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the German president, said: ‘‘This was a serious act of violence. My deep sympathy goes to all those who have lost a loved one.’’
Ulrike Demmer, a spokeswoman for Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, said: ‘‘Terrible news coming out of Munster. Our thoughts are with the victims and their families.’’
Markus Lewe, the city’s mayor, said the motive was unclear. He added: ‘‘All of Munster is mourning this horrible incident. Our sympathy is with the relatives of those who were killed.
‘‘We wish the injured a quick recovery. At this point we don’t know the background to the incident.’’
There was already a heightened police presence in the area before the incident as officers watched over a pro-Kurdish demonstration.
Shortly after the first reports of the attack emerged Donald Trump Jr, the US president’s son, wrote on Twitter: ‘‘Let’s not jump to conclusions, but this doesn’t sound like a simple accident to me.’’ – The Sunday Telegraph