Germany probes synagogue suspect, vows better security
HALLE, Germany — German investigators puzzled Thursday over how the suspect in a botched attack on a synagogue on Judaism’s holiest day managed to amass at least nearly 9 pounds of explosives and acquire four firearms, an arsenal they said he planned to use in a massacre.
While many questions remain about the suspect, German officials sought to reassure a shaken Jewish community after Wednesday’s attack in the eastern city of Halle. They invoked Germany’s historical responsibility from the Holocaust as they vowed better security and urged the nation to stand behind its Jews.
The attacker, a German identified by prosecutors as Stephan B., tried but failed to force his way into the synagogue as up to 80 people were inside. He then shot and killed a 40-year-old German woman in the street outside and a 20-year-old man at a nearby kebab shop.
He fled the city, wounding another two people in a small town near Halle where he abandoned his car and driving onward in a stolen taxi. He was arrested about 1 hours after the attack as he got out of the taxi, which had been in an accident.
“What we experienced yesterday was terror,” said Peter Frank, Germany’s chief federal prosecutor. “The suspect, Stephan B., aimed to carry out a massacre in the synagogue in Halle.”
Frank said the weapons were “apparently homemade” and the explosives were in “numerous devices” found in the car.
The suspect livestreamed the attack on a popular gaming site while ranting in English about Jews and denying the Holocaust, and posted a “manifesto” online before embarking on it.
He “wanted to create a worldwide effect” by emulating attackers such as the man who killed 51 people at mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand in March and by encouraging others to imitate his own actions in Halle, the prosecutor added.
Previously unknown to German authorities, he is being held on suspicion of two counts of murder, nine of attempted murder and other offenses, Frank said.
Frank said investigators “face a lot of questions,” among them how the suspect became radicalized, how he acquired weapons and explosives or obtained materials to build them, and whether anyone else encouraged him or knew about his plan.
Prosecutors plan to sift through his communications and online activities.
The head of Halle’s Jewish community, Max Privorozki, was among those observing Yom Kippur inside the synagogue during the attack.
The worshippers watched on monitors linked to a surveillance camera as the man tried to break into the building and fired at the door, he said.
“We saw everything, also how he shot and how he killed someone,” Privorozki said, standing outside the damaged door. “I thought this door wouldn’t hold.”
Unlike synagogues in many other German cities, the one in Halle didn’t have police officers outside for Yom Kippur, an omission strongly criticized by Jewish leaders.
It and other synagogues in the region will now get full police protection.