According to research by this newspaper, the suspected perpetrator of the arson attack on the Ulm synagogue on June 5 maintained contacts via social media with at least two men from the Ulm area who spread – partly radical – anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic content. For example, on May 11, the suspect Serkan P. liked a post where another man from Ulm spread while using a picture of the medieval ruler Salah-ad-Din: “How can a Muslim laugh while Jerusalem is occupied? How can a Muslim sleep peacefully while Jerusalem is occupied?” Elsewhere, articles are published about the conquest of Constantinople in 1453 by the Ottoman Sultan Mehmet II. The victory is considered the beginning of the rise of the Ottoman Empire, which lasted until 1922, and is celebrated by Turkish nationalists.
Content by the blogger Bilgilis Üretmens is also spread via the same user accounts. The man from Soest in North Rhine-Westphalia is considered the mouthpiece of the Turkish ruling party AKP and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Germany, whose messages he spreads. Alternatively, he rages against Germany, the German government, Kurds or Israel. P. also accessed Üretmen’s pages via his user accounts.
But: P. also counts people among his friends on the internet who explicitly took sides with Israel during the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in May. However, the man from Ulm did not agree with such posts, in contrast to anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic ones. Serkan P. seems to have left Ulm for Turkey, where his family lives. A photo also published on social media shows him watching the European Championship match between Turkey and Wales on television with his relatives in the town of Gemlik, south of Istanbul, on June 16. The suspect is particularly identifiable by a striking tattoo on his left forearm. Investigators had published photos of the man last week, which had been recorded by the surveillance camera of a public bus.
The Ulm police and the public prosecutor’s office in Stuttgart announced in a press release last Tuesday that they had identified the man in the meantime. The information hotline for the public is no longer operating.