Few mainstream media are reporting on Friday’s verdict by the Munich Higher Regional Court against IS terrorist Muharrem D., who committed a series of attacks in Waldkraiburg, Upper Bavaria, in 2020, approvingly accepting the deaths of at least 26 people.
However, the newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung and some Turkish media.
The indictment against Muharrem D., who is of Kurdish-Turkish origin, was extraordinarily extensive – but according to a familiar pattern: attempted multiple murder, aggravated arson, violations of the explosives law and the preparation of a serious act endangering the state. As a “precautionary measure”, the Munich public prosecutor’s office found D. to have a “significantly diminished responsibility” and had demanded that the alleged perpetrator be placed in a psychiatric hospital because of his schizophrenia, at the expense of the German taxpayer.
Perpetrator of Turkish origin acted out of “hatred of Turks”
The now 27-year-old Kurdish-Turkish Muharrem D. had admitted to being responsible for the series of attacks in Waldkraiburg last year which caused a sensation in many nationwide media. There, a “right-wing” crime background out of xenophobia was generally implied at first, so was the left-wing extremist “taz” report. Among other things, the self-proclaimed IS terrorist had set fire to a Turkish greengrocer’s shop and put 26 people in the flats of the house in concrete danger of their lives. They could only save themselves by warnings from neighbours in the middle of the night.
Muharrem D. also committed attacks on a hairdressing salon, a kebab snack bar, a pizzeria and the “Sultan Ahmed Mosque” in Waldkraiburg. Because the door there did not open, he threw his incendiary device into a paper dustbin right next to the imam’s home, where the man was sleeping with his family. Only because the flames went out, nothing worse happened. The prosecution considered this an attempted murder of the family.
Muharrem planned many more crimes and murders
The quick arrest of D. on May 8, 2020 may have prevented further crimes. When the police intervened, he had pipe bombs and kilos of explosives in his possession, which he had previously stored for a long time in his car in an underground car park in Garching on the River Alz. In court, the accused admitted that he had planned other crimes as well: Attacks on several mosques of the Islamic association Ditib, on the Turkish consulate general in Munich and the Ditib central mosque in Cologne.
According to the indictment, since 2017 D. had – surprise! – “seemingly out of the blue” radicalised himself. He listened to Salafist sermons on the internet and quickly became a follower of the terrorist organisation Islamic State, like so many ” refugees” that the Merkel regime has imported into the German social systems from all the archaic cultures of the world since 2015. Muharrem developed an incomprehensible hatred against Turks, even though he himself is of Turkish origin.
“The foundation on which schizophrenia is saddled”
According to the court, the accused is schizophrenic. “Without schizophrenia, the attacks committed by the accused in Waldkraiburg would be inconceivable,” said the presiding judge. However, they were “equally inconceivable without the Islamist-jihadist ideology”. This was “the foundation on which the schizophrenia was saddled”. Muharrem D. has had a schizophrenic disorder since 2019.
In the judgment, the judge elaborated at length on the “childhood and upbringing” of the would-be mass murderer: Muharrem D. grew up in Garching. He was always treated politely by his quaint surroundings in Upper Bavaria and was perceived as restrained. He had grown up in a well-integrated, hardly religious family. However, he turned to Salafism in 2013 at the latest. At first, he only sympathised with IS ideologies, but since the Merkel year of 2015/16, he has also identified with them. Since then, he had seen himself as a strict IS fighter. Until 2018, he had radicalised himself exclusively via the internet. From autumn 2018, he moved to Munich for a few months to live in the “Al-Salam Mosque”, a mosque with Salafist leanings, according to the judge. Over the years, the judge said, Muharrem D. had then developed “a bizarre-seeming private ideology” – with a hatred of all people of Turkish origin. He had wanted to bring about “war-like conditions”.
Radical Islamic Instagram account: Videos of executions
The Munich Higher Regional Court analysed in particular the Instagram account of the assassin. The expert confirmed that it was “clearly Islamist”. Muharrem D. had posted videos of executions. He had also regularly transferred money to the family of an IS fighter in Turkey. Since 2018, he had repeatedly been in contact with well-known Salafists in Munich.
Many of the Waldkraiburg tenants who were trapped by the fire at night still suffer from psychological problems today. One affected person says that for months he lay in bed thinking he smelled smoke and that there was a fire. Apart from the psychological problems, there were also organizational problems for the victims: 27 people had to leave their homes after the fire – for months. Some were accommodated in a municipal emergency shelter. Helga Rittersporn, who was affected, said she had lived for ten months, partly with her daughters, partly in a hotel. Only then did the property management allow her to return to her flat. Rittersporn tells of a five-year-old neighbour’s child: “When she sees me, she always says: Helga, why was that man so bad, why did that man do that?
“He always had a smile on his face”
In an interview, the public broadcaster Bavarian Broadcasting Corporation (BR), which is financed by one billion euros, lets the parents and the football coach of the terrorist have their say in a “conciliatory” manner:
“At a large table with pastries and coffee, Muharrem D.’s father slaps his hands in front of his face. ‘I’m totally exhausted,’ he says. For him and his wife, drugs are the reason why their son Muharrem allegedly committed the offences […] They openly show their feelings to the reporters of the BR political magazine Kontrovers. ‘It’s really hard,’ says the father, who keeps crying. The mother tries to remain objective. Muharrem’s former football coach is also at the table. He says Muharrem was a very nice boy: ‘He always had a smile on his face and took part in every nonsense. But he never really became abusive.’
The father can still remember the moment when he discovered his son in a Munich mosque in Sendling. ‘I said to him: Muharrem, it doesn’t work like that. Sister and mum are outside. Come, let’s talk to each other.’ But his son Muharrem had not wanted to come along.”
The imam of the mosque did not want to talk about Muharrem D.. However, he confirmed that he had been summoned as a witness in the trial. Muharrem D. testified in court that at the time of the attacks he was no longer in control of himself. His tax-funded lawyer, Dr Christian Gerber, assumed that his responsibility was severely diminished:
“Shortly after his arrest, there were already clear signs of psychosis. That has improved, but you can see from his statements and contradictions that he is ill and needs to be treated.”
Hence, no doubt, the lenient sentence against the “very nice boy” Muharrem: Nine and a half years in psychological forensic treatment and Upper Bavarian dance therapy.
Johannes Daniels – ://haolam.de/artikel/Deutschland/46111/Mnchen-ISTerrorist-wegen-26-Mordversuchen-verurteilt.html