The town of Hanau, in Germany’s central state of Hessen, has witnessed a terrifying night due to gunfire and weapons’ attack, as the radical German Tobias R. 43, killed ten people with his rifle in two separate attacks, which took place at 10:00 pm, Wednesday. After the bloodshed, the attacker committed suicide.
The first attack targeted a café in Hanau’s centre, while the attacker in his second attack targeted a café in the neighborhood of Kesselstadt, where most of the café’s visitors are Muslims of Kurdish origins. according to German sources. Between the attacks in the two cafes, Tobias R. killed another person in his car.
On Friday morning, the German police tweeted on their official Twitter account, confirming that police found the suspect dead in his house, in Kesselstadt, where they found his body next to his mother’s, whom he killed before committing suicide.
The police added that it found a 24-pages letter as well as several videos which reveal his radical trends, in which he talked about the need of destroying some nations that can no longer be expelled from Germany.
The German newspaper, Bild, published detailed reports about the accidents, clarifying that Tobias went to the first crime scene in the centre of Hanau, went in the café and shot its visitors, leaving several dead and injured. He then went by a car to the second Shisha café and shot its visitors, leaving more casualties before he escaped. Most of the victims are Turkish and Kurdish, the newspaper pointed out.
Die Welt newspaper quoted eyewitnesses as saying that the perpetrator first shot three Turkish visitors who were eating fast food, then he shot the Turkish waiter, after that he killed a 20-years-old Bosnian man and Polish waitress in the Arena Hooka bar.
The newspaper also published photos of a Mercedes-Benz car which was damaged due to the gunfire near one of the cafés. The eyewitnesses said the shooter/ shooters targeted a café which was mostly visited mostly by Arabs and Muslims, and then headed to another café and shot its visitors.
The eyewitnesses confirmed hearing eight or nine successive bursts, and seeing at least one person on the ground, while more than 10 people were injured.
It’s noteworthy that German Police have arrested a far-right group last Friday, where investigations revealed that they were planning to wage wide-scale attacks against mosques, similar to the attacks which took place in New Zealand last year.
For her part, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has confirmed there are several indications which reveal that suspect who conducted the shooting in Hanau, near Frankfurt, “acted out of extreme right and racist motivation.”
“There are several proofs which indicate that the accused attacker in Hanau accident acted out of extreme-right racism,” the German Chancellor said in statements to journalists, reported by German media.
“Racism and hatred are poisons in our society and are responsible for many crimes, and the German government will use all its power to confront those, who try to divide the country” she added.
The German Minister of Justice Christiane Lambrecht expressed sympathy for the victims’ families.
“It is horrifying how many people were killed there to no avail. Basically, we have to investigate the backgrounds of the incident and do everything to prevent such crimes in the future,” Lambrecht said on Thursday.
Meanwhile, many German citizens have showed their solidarity with the families of the victims, and lit candles for the victims’ lives on the crime scene. As this year’s carnival season reaches its climax this weekend in many German regions, many festivals were cancelled or their program changed due to the mass murder in Hanau, while the football teams of Eintracht Frankfurt, Bayer Leverkusen and Wolfsburg decided to put black strips on their arms during their matches in the European League, a sign of grief and mourning.
