The suspect accused of injuring more than 30 people in a car ramming attack in Munich, Germany, appears to have been motivated by Islamic extremism, prosecutors revealed Friday.
The 24-year-old Afghan, a self-described bodybuilder and fitness model, was arrested Thursday after he drove his Mini Cooper into the back of a labor union demonstration. The incident unfolded near where world leaders — including Vice President JD Vance and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy — were expected to gather for the Munich Security Conference.
Prosecutor Gabriele Tilmann said that the suspect said “Allahu Akbar,” or “God is great,” to police and then prayed after his arrest — which prompted a department that investigates extremism and terror to take on the case immediately.
In questioning, he admitted deliberately driving into the demonstration and “gave an explanation that I would summarize as religious motivation,” Tilmann said, according to the Associated Press. “According to all we know at the moment, I would venture to speak of an Islamist motivation.”
CAR DRIVER IN MUNICH PLOWS INTO CROWD
A car is lifted onto a tow truck at the scene where a driver drove into a labor union demonstration in Munich, Germany, on Thursday Feb. 13.(Matthias Balk/dpa via AP)
However, there were no indications the suspect was in any Islamic extremist organization, she reportedly added.
Tilmann also announced Friday that the suspect, who arrived in Germany as an asylum-seeker in 2016 and lived in Munich, posted content with religious references — such as “Allah, protect us always” — on social media.
The attack left 36 people injured, and the suspect is now facing 36 counts of attempted murder as well as bodily harm and dangerous interference with road traffic.
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Police investigate the scene of the car ramming attack in Munich, Germany on Thursday.(Matthias Balk/dpa via AP)
The deputy head of Bavaria’s state criminal police office, Guido Limmer, said investigators found a chat, apparently with relatives, in which the suspect wrote “perhaps I won’t be there anymore tomorrow,” but so far they have found nothing that points to concrete preparations for the attack or anyone else being involved.
The man had no previous convictions and had a valid residence permit. Tilmann also said there was no indication of mental illness.
German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier reportedly laid a flower at the attack scene Friday morning, where he condemned “the brutality of this act” and said that it “leaves us stunned.”
Markus Soeder, Prime Minister of Bavaria, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Dieter Reiter, Mayor of Munich, from right, bring flowers on Friday, Feb. 14, to the site of the attack in Munich.(AP/Ebrahim Noroozi)
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A spokesperson for the vice president told Fox News Digital on Tuesday that Vance and President Zelenskyy will meet on the sidelines of the conference, where the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war is likely to be a focus.
Fox News’ Rachel Wolf and Morgan Phillips contributed to this report.
Newly-appointed interim U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Ed Martin published a letter vowing to hold to account those who try to sabotage efforts of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to clean the federal government of overspending and corruption.
“I recognize that some of the staff at DOGE have been targeted publicly,” Martin wrote to Elon Musk in a letter, which Martin posted to his X account Monday. “At this time, I ask that you utilize me and my staff to assist in protecting the DOGE work and the DOGE workers. Any threats, confrontations or other actions in any way that impact their work may break numerous laws.”
“Let me assure you of this: We will pursue any and all legal action against anyone who impedes your work or threatens your people,” he continued. “We will not act like the previous administration who looked the other way as the Antifa and BLM rioters as well as thugs with guns trashed our capital city. We will protect DOGE and other workers no matter what.”
Martin previously worked as a defense attorney, including representing three men charged in the Jan. 6 protests, when President Donald Trump supporters breached the U.S. Capitol in 2021.
Trump granted clemency to more than 1,500 Jan. 6, 2021 criminal defendants upon taking office in January.
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Newly-appointed interim U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Ed Martin, inset, published a letter vowing to hold to account those who try to sabotage efforts of the Department of Government Efficiency, led by Elon Musk.(Chesnot/Getty Images )
Trump appointed Martin the interim United States attorney for Washington, D.C., shortly following his Jan. 20 inauguration.
Martin’s letter comes as Musk takes a hatchet to government agencies such as the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to rid the departments of what the administration has described as corruption and overspending.
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News reports spread this week that Musk’s DOGE team includes a group of college-age engineers to help dismantle government overspending and reported corruption, which has sparked some on social media to attack the team, including threatening to dox them, according to a review of some reactions online.
News reports spread this week that the DOGE team, led by Elon Musk, includes a group of college-age engineers to help dismantle government overspending and reported corruption.( Samuel Corum/Getty Images)
Martin noted in his Monday public letter that he worked with the DOGE team “this weekend,” while warning that “we must keep all our American government employees safe and we must protect the American people’s property.”
“One last warning to you,” Martin wrote in the conclusion of his letter to Musk. “Late last week, we indicted an economist who worked for the Fed for economic espionage for the Communist Chinese. Please be very aware that there are those who are acting against our American people in every way. Refer to us any questionable conduct or details that you find or notice.”
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USAID’s fate is hanging in the balance as Musk went on a warpath against the independent government agency as a “viper’s nest of radical-left marxists who hate America.” On Monday morning, hundreds of USAID employees reported they were locked out of the agency’s computer system and that its headquarters in Washington, D.C., was closed.
Elon Musk, left, announced in an audio-only message on X overnight on Sunday that “we’re in the process” of “shutting down USAID” and that President Donald Trump reportedly agreed to shutter the agency.(Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
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Musk announced in an audio-only message on X overnight on Sunday that “we’re in the process” of “shutting down USAID” and that Trump reportedly agreed to shutter the agency.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced on Monday that he is now serving as acting director of the agency and outlined that its policies need to shift to fall in line with Trump’s “America First” mission.
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“USAID is not functioning. It has to be aligned with U.S. policy,” he told reporters while in El Salvador. “It needs to be aligned with the national interest of the U.S. They’re not a global charity. These are taxpayer dollars. People are asking simple questions. What are they doing with the money? We are spending taxpayers’ money. We owe the taxpayers assurances that it furthers our national interest.”
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In a move that some critics say was intended to influence the Trump administration and Congress, Karim Khan, controversial prosecutor for the International Criminal Court (ICC), filed applications for arrest warrants against Taliban senior leader Haibatullah Akhundzada and Taliban chief justice Abdul Hakim Haqqani for crimes against humanity.
The timing of the move came as the U.S. Senate prepares to vote on a bill to sanction the ICC over its request for arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister, Yoav Gallant. The House bill passed on Jan. 9 with bipartisan support.
Khan’s “move is no doubt a Hail Mary pass to deter the Senate vote,” Richard Goldberg, a senior advisor at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Fox News Digital. He added that some in Washington “might fall for the charade… Khan and the ICC have already shown us who and what they are. They are still investigating Americans, they are seeking the arrest of Israelis, all red lines have been crossed and there’s no evading the consequences.”
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The International Criminal Court (ICC) building in The Hague, Netherlands, on April 30, 2024.(Selman Aksunger/Anadolu via Getty Images)
The Illegitimate Court Counteraction Act would sanction foreigners attempting to arrest, detain, prosecute or investigate citizens of the U.S. or its allies, including Israel. It would also attempt to regain funds designated to the ICC and stop further court contributions. The U.S. is not party to the Rome Statute.
Rebecca Hamilton, formerly a lawyer in the ICC’s prosecutorial division, wrote in Just Security about the double standard the U.S. is forced into by opposing the ICC following the Taliban arrest warrants. Given the timing of the Senate’s impending vote on a bill that “potentially threatens the ICC’s very survival,” Hamilton wrote, “One might argue then, that the ICC Prosecutor’s announcement on Thursday was less about pursuing his mandate, and more about trying to save his job.”
In addressing the matter she added, “The discretion that the ICC Prosecutor has to determine when to go public with the announcement of an arrest warrant application is often used strategically, and surely has been in this case. But investigations of international crimes cannot be put together overnight.”
Karim Khan is the ICC’s chief prosecutor.(Getty Images)
Israel’s ambassador to the U.N., Danny Danon, told Fox News Digital, “Prosecutor Karim Khan has a myopic obsession over Israel with the war crimes charges leveled at Israel’s democratically elected prime minister and former defense minister. Equating the leaders of a democracy with leaders of the Hamas terrorist organization – and more recently, with the Taliban – is an insult to the principles of justice.”
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Danon said, “The ICC has lost its credibility, and it’s about time for a review of the ICC’s – and Prosecutor Khan’s – true motivations for focusing so intensely – and so distortedly – on Israel.”
Fox News Digital reached out to the ICC to ask why warrants against Taliban leaders have taken so long to issue, as well as about whether there is equivalence between the crimes for which the ICC seeks to charge Taliban leaders, and those for which the ICC has charged Netanyahu and Gallant.
The Office of the Prosecutor told Fox News Digital that announcements in Afghanistan “marked the culmination of significant work between the Office and affected communities in seeking accountability for alleged crimes committed in Afghanistan.” The office stated that its investigation into Afghanistan had only resumed on Oct. 31, 2022, after being deferred due to “an admissibility challenge by the former government of Afghanistan.”
A Taliban fighter stands guard as women wait to receive food rations distributed by a humanitarian aid group in Kabul, Afghanistan, May 23, 2023.(AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi, File)
Khan’s office said it follows the same protocol for the filing of all warrants, including those in Afghanistan and for Palestinians. It noted that in the past year, the ICC has “sought or obtained warrants for arrest in situations including Afghanistan, Ukraine, Myanmar/Bangladesh, State of Palestine, Libya and Mali as well as taking forward trials in the situations in Mali, Central African Republic and Darfur.”
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A spokesperson from the European Union said that “the EU respects the court’s independence and impartiality.”
While the spokesperson did not speak to charges against Israeli officials, they said, “The EU and its Member States support initiatives that ensure accountability and regularly recall that systematic and systemic violations against women and girls in Afghanistan may amount to gender persecution, which is a crime against humanity under the Rome Statute of the ICC of which Afghanistan is a state party.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then-Defense Minister Yoav Gallant with senior military officials during the strike on Iran.(Avi Ohayon/ GPO)
A spokesperson for United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, did not respond to Fox News Digital’s questions about the equivalence between warrants for Taliban and Israeli leaders.
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Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., Tweeted on Jan. 24 that he plans to vote for the ICCA, explaining that “the ICC’s treatment towards Israel and equivocating to Hamas was unacceptable. We should absolutely sanction the ICC.”
Goldberg, a former national security advisor during President Donald Trump’s first term, warned “the sanctions coming out of Congress will certainly make life difficult for the officials and groups who are waging lawfare against us, but to actually cripple ICC operations and end the lawfare, we will need the Trump administration to impose sanctions directly on the ICC. I’m not sure American service members are safe until that happens.”
