Germany probes motive of Syrian crash truck hijacker
Nine people slightly injured, including the driver of the stolen vehicle
German authorities on Tuesday were investigating as terrorism an attack on motorists when a Syrian man hijacked an articulated lorry and smashed it into cars stopped at a traffic light in the city of Limburg, injuring several people.
The public prosecutor’s office said it had opened an attempted homicide probe against the 32-yearold suspect, whose name was not released.
“The investigation into what was behind the act is ongoing,” the prosecutors said in a statement. “We cannot comment on the motive in particular — we are pursuing all leads.”
Unconfirmed media reports said the Syrian national arrived with the massive migrant influx to Germany in 2015 and that his residency permit had expired on Oct. 1. Germany has been on alert following several terror attacks in recent years claimed by Daesh.
The most deadly was committed in 2016 by a 23-year-old Tunisian, who killed 12 people when he stole a truck and ploughed it through a Berlin Christmas market.
However the authorities remained cautious.
A spokesman for the federal prosecutor’s office in Karlsruhe, which usually takes over terror probes, said it was for now leaving the case to Frankfurt.
Hesse state Interior Minister Peter Beuth urged people not to jump to conclusions.
“Although the events recall the horrible attacks in Nice and Berlin, and stared at him wide-eyed before forcing him out of the vehicle. “I asked him ‘What do you want from me?,’” he told FNP. “He didn’t say a word.”
Prosecutors said he was not believed to have used a weapon in the hijacking.
The truck sped into the parked cars a few metres (yards) away and came to a stop on the central reservation of a six-lane road.
When the man behind the wheel of the truck emerged from the crash, several passers-by provided first aid, FNP said.
“The passers-by said the driver said ‘Allah’ several times” and spoke Arabic, FNP reported.
Police did not confirm account.
Bettina Yeisley from Limburg, whose office is next to the crash scene, told FNP she heard a loud bang and ran out onto the street with colleagues.
They found the driver sitting by the roadside in the city of 35,000 about an hour’s drive from the financial capital Frankfurt.
“He was bleeding from the nose, his hands were bloody, his trousers torn. He said that everything hurt. I asked him his name and he said, ‘My name is Mohammed’.”
The Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Germany’s domestic security watchdog, warned in April of an estimated 2,240 radicals with “terrorist potential” living in Germany.
The far-right Alternative for Germany party has seized on Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision to leave the German border open to more than one million migrants and refugees in 2015-16, accusing her government of compromising national security. It is now the biggest opposition party in Parliament.
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