Attempted murder, dangerous interference with traffic and unlawful possession of a weapon – the charges against the 22-year-old are serious. The man is alleged to have fired indiscriminately at cars on the B 16 motorway in September. He has now been charged.
The case caused a stir last September: over a three-day period, a man is alleged to have fired at vehicles on the B16 near Dillingen an der Donau using an air rifle. According to the public prosecutor’s office, his sole aim was to provoke accidents. Now the young man, who is suspected of Islamist extremism, must stand trial for attempted murder. As the broadcasters BR and SWR reported in November, he was part of an Islamist chat group in which fantasies of violence were shared and enemy stereotypes propagated.
The Bavarian Central Office for Combating Extremism and Terrorism (ZET), which operates under the Office of the Attorney General, has brought a murder charge before the Augsburg Regional Court. The authority accuses the 22-year-old Turkish national of attempted murder in 23 cases, endangering road traffic and unlawful possession of a firearm.
According to the indictment, the young man is alleged to have fired an air rifle at passing vehicles from the side of the road in mid-September whilst wearing camouflage clothing. In doing so, he is said to have intended to distract the drivers to such an extent that they would veer off the road and be killed or at least seriously injured in the resulting accidents.
In the area of the crime scene, the two lanes are not physically separated, and the speed limit is 100 km/h. The danger was correspondingly high, it was stated.
Although the drivers were startled by the loud bangs of the gunshots, there were no accidents or injuries because the drivers swerved or braked but remained in control of their vehicles at all times. The vehicles sustained a total of over €33,000 in damage.
During the police investigations, evidence emerged pointing to an extremist motive. Consequently, the Munich Public Prosecutor’s Office took over the case last autumn. Investigators believe the motive was Islamist.
The shooter is said to have shown sympathies for the jihadist militia IS and to have glorified the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, in the USA. He is said to have deliberately chosen September 11 or the days around it as the date of the attack. The accused is said to have wanted to kill “infidels”.
The suspect was arrested a few days after the incident. He has been in pre-trial detention ever since. The Augsburg Regional Court must now decide whether to allow the charges of attempted murder in 23 cases to proceed to trial.