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Mourning in Trier: candles in front of the Porta Nigra
Photo:
QUAY PFAFFENBACH / REUTERS
Dreadful.
Incomprehensible.
Awful.
These are words that keep coming up during these hours to describe an event that can hardly be understood: the deadly rampage in the city center of Trier.
How can one grasp what happened there, not far from the city's landmark, around a quarter to two on Tuesday afternoon?
Somebody sits behind the wheel of a powerful off-road vehicle and runs over people in the pedestrian zone at high speed.
"Indiscriminately and purposefully," as the public prosecutor says.
He kills five people, including a nine-week-old baby and its 45-year-old father.
In the sober words of the law: A 51-year-old accused is in custody on urgent suspicion of murder in five cases and attempted murder and dangerous bodily harm in 18 other cases.
Bernd W., the name of the urgent suspect, was arrested at the car.
According to the public prosecutor's office, a breath alcohol test showed a value of 1.4 per thousand.
What is still completely open at this early stage of the investigation: the motive.
An explanation for this act.
In the first interrogations, according to the public prosecutor, W. made "varying and partly incomprehensible information".
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