At least eight people were killed Wednesday night in Hanau, near Frankfurt (central Germany), in two shootings. The police, who had launched a large-scale manhunt, announced this Thursday morning that they had found the alleged perpetrator dead at his home. A second body was found at the suspect's home in the town where the attack took place, police said on Twitter. "There is no indication that other suspects were involved," she said.
The shootings allegedly targeted shisha bars and left at least five seriously injured, according to local media. "At this point, the police can only confirm that eight people have been fatally injured," the authorities said in a statement. A large police force has been deployed in this city, located about twenty kilometers from Frankfurt (Hesse), according to the same source. An AFP journalist on the spot saw around thirty police cars leaving the Hanau police station and, according to witnesses, police officers with machine guns were deployed in the city.
A first shooting would have targeted a hookah bar, the Midnight, in the heart of this city of about 90,000 inhabitants. According to the police, at least one person was seriously injured at this first site around 10 p.m. (9 p.m. GMT). Witnesses, quoted by local media, reported hearing a dozen shots. The author (s) then left this first site by car in the direction of Kurt-Schumacher Platz, in the district of Kesselstadt, according to the police.
A second shooting then took place, which left "at least five seriously injured" according to the authorities' initial assessment. According to local media, three people were killed in front of the first hookah bar and five in front of the second, L'Arena Bar. Many vehicles and ambulances circulated in the night in this city, AFP noted.
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The motive for these attacks is not yet known, said a police spokesman. Germany has been targeted in recent years by several jihadist attacks, one of which killed 12 people in the heart of Berlin in December 2016. But it is the threat of far-right terrorism that most worries the German authorities. , especially since the murder of a pro-migrant German elected member of Chancellor Angela Merkel's party last June.
On Friday, 12 members of a far-right group were arrested as part of a massive counterterrorism investigation. They are suspected of having planned large-scale attacks on mosques on the model of the author of the attack on Christchurch in New Zealand, who in March 2019 had killed 51 people in two mosques by filming themselves live. They were taken into custody. The attacks were aimed at triggering "conditions close to civil war" and undermining social order, according to security sources quoted by the DPA agency.
In October, a right-wing extremist Holocaust denier had attempted to carry out an attack in a synagogue in Halle, a massacre being only barely avoided. Unable to enter the religious building in which the faithful had barricaded themselves, he had shot a passerby and the client of a kebab restaurant, broadcasting his packages live on the internet. His trial is expected soon.
Eight neo-Nazis in Dresden, in the former GDR, have also been on trial for almost five months for planning attacks on foreigners and politicians. The association Ditib, the main organization of the Turkish Muslim community in Germany, has asked for more protection for its faithful who "no longer feel safe". Currently, 50 people linked to the far-right movement and considered as "dangers to the security of the state" are particularly monitored by the intelligence services.