He shouted “Allahu Akbar” and threatened with a bomb, shortly after he hit several motorcyclists on the Berlin city motorway A100. Shortly before the crime, he posted comments about the crime on Facebook.
It is Tuesday evening, 6.35 pm, when Sarmad A. (30 years old) starts his terror attack on the Berlin city motorway. Six people are injured, one person suffers an artificial coma on Wednesday. The offender was arrested.
Two hours before his first collision, he showed up on Facebook wearing a red shirt and the Opel car with which he committed the attack shortly afterwards.
He also wore the red shirt on the Facebook photo when he was arrested. He also posted religious slogans.
The 30-year-old Iraqi came to Germany as an asylum seeker. After his asylum application was rejected, he is living in Berlin on a toleration order, the German Press Agency learned from Senate circles on Wednesday.
According to the agency, it was not yet clear when he came to Germany. According to photos from his Facebook profile, he was already in Berlin in 2016 at least. Until autumn 2019, he had been accommodated in a shared accommodation in the Altglienicke district. After that, he moved into an apartment in the Reinickendorf district, where he will most likely live together with his brother.A. is said to have at least had contact with an Islamist known as a threat, the newspaper B.Z. learned from security circles. According to the public prosecutor’s office, there were also indications of psychological problems. So far, no indications of membership in a terrorist organization could be detected. According to the newspaper “Tagesspiegel”, however, A. is to be assigned to the group of ISIS.
After the presumed Islamist attack, the Federal Prosecutor’s Office responsible for terrorism keeps itself informed of all developments. “We are in constant close contact with the investigating authorities in Berlin,” said a spokesperson in Karlsruhe on Wednesday in response to a request.
The Attorney General would be responsible if connections of the man to a terrorist organization were to be revealed.Martin Steltner, spokesman for the Berlin Public Prosecutor General’s Office, spoke at a press conference on Wednesday afternoon of “targeted attacks” on motorcyclists whom A. had literally “hunted down”. He said that a religious Islamic background was assumed. The social environment of the 30-year-old must now be clarified. He also confirmed indications of psychological instability.When asked by the newspaper B.Z., he did not mention a possible connection of the 30-year-old with the Islamist milieu, but said that “every stone would be turned over”.”Based on the current state of knowledge, we believe the attack to be Islamist. A religiously motivated background to the crime cannot be ruled out,” Geisel said on Wednesday. The crashes had been deliberately caused. “The fact that the suspect may have suffered from psychological problems does not make things easier. If personal problems mix with religiously charged ideas, this can lead to uncontrollable actions.”
Geisel further explained: “If a car deliberately hits motorcyclists, the latter have no chance.” He said that innocent people “fell victim to a crime out of nowhere”. Among the three seriously injured was a fireman on his way home. “Yesterday’s events show us very painfully how vulnerable our free society is.” Berlin, he said, “continues to be the focus of Islamist terrorism”.
On Wednesday, A. is scheduled to be brought before a judge for attempted murder.
bz-berlin.de/berlin/anschlag-a100-stadtautobahn-kurz-vor-der-tat-postete-er-ein-foto-mit-dem-terror-auto