Authorities Puzzle Over Motive for German Knife Attack
BERLIN The German city of Wuerzburg on Sunday held a memorial service for the victims of a brutal knife attack that left three women dead, while questions about the possible motive of the assailant remained unanswered.
Friday’s assault in and outside a store in the center of the Bavarian city left another five people seriously injured. The suspect, a 24-year-old Somali man, was shot in the leg by police and arrested after people surrounded him and tried to hold him at bay with chairs and sticks.
Investigators were still working Sunday to figure out what was behind the attack by what they believe was a lone assailant. They are assessing his mental health and trying to determine whether he was radicalized as an Islamic extremist. It was unclear whether he deliberately targeted women.
The attack started late Friday afternoon when the suspect walked into a store in Wuerzburg, went to the household goods department and asked a saleswoman where the knives were, regional police chief Gerhard Kallert said.
By CHRISTOPH NOELTING and GEIR MOULSON
Associated Press Jun 26, 2021
3 hrs ago
WUERZBURG, Germany (AP) The suspect in a knife attack in southern Germany that left three women dead was ordered kept in custody Saturday on suspicion of murder, while authorities puzzled over a possible motive, examining his mental health and seeking to determine whether he was radicalized.
The attack started late Friday afternoon when the suspect walked into a store in Wuerzburg, went to the household goods department and asked a saleswoman where the knives were, regional police chief Gerhard Kallert said. He then grabbed a knife and fatally stabbed three women in the store, before continuing to attack people outside. Six people, most of them women, were seriously injured, and one of them remained in a life-threatening condition on Saturday.
WUERZBURG: Authorities in Germany were investigating yesterday what prompted a man to go on the rampage with a knife in the town of Wuerzberg, killing.
Germany knife attack victims were all women -policeEurope 2021-06-27, by Editor Comments Off 0
Wuerzberg on Friday, killing three women and seriously injuring five other women.Officials said the suspect, whose rampage was halted when police arrested him, was a 24-year-old Somali immigrant who had had mental health problems in the past. As is the practice in Germany, they did not name him.
Officials assume the suspect was acting alone, but are still investigating whether there was any Islamist motive for the attack, regional Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann told a news conference.
Herrmann cited one witness as saying that before starting his spree the suspect had shouted “Allahu akbar”, an Arabic phrase that means “God is great” and that is often associated with acts of Islamist militancy when used by attackers.