Hamburg attack was by ‘failed asylum seeker’ who shouted ‘Allahu Akbar’
A man shouting “Allahu Akbar” stabbed to death one person and wounded six others in a supermarket in the German city of Hamburg on Friday.
The attacker, who was born in the United Arab Emirates, was overpowered by passers-by and arrested.
Olaf Scholz, the mayor of Hamburg, said the attack had been motivated by “hate” and added that the suspected attacker was a failed asylum seeker whose deportation had been blocked because he lacked identity papers.
“I am outraged by the vicious attack that killed at least one Hamburger today,” he said. “It makes me especially angry that the perpetrator appears to be a person who claimed protection in Germany and then turned his hate against us.”
Citing security sources, Berlin newspaper Der Tagesspiegel reported that the 26-year-old perpetrator was known to police as an Islamist. News agency DPA reported that security authorities were investigating evidence the man had Salafist ties.
“Suddenly I saw a man smeared with blood running along the other side of the road with a knife,” an eyewitness identified as Ralf W. told Bild. “He shouted out ‘Allahu Akbar’ as he was running.”
A female witness standing in line at the supermarket till also told NTV rolling news channel that “as he was running out… he held up his arms and shouted ‘Allahu Akbar’.”
But “people were running after him with improvised weapons, chairs and sticks… they ran after him into a side street,” Ralf W. told Bild.
“People chased after the killer with chairs, they were throwing them at him,” bakery worker Shaylin Roettmer told DPA.
Anti-terror officers armed with automatic weapons patrolled the scene and onlookers gathered behind strips of red-and-white police tape.
While the attacker’s motives remain unknown, Germany has been on high alert about the threat of a jihadist attack,