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Rabat – Hamburg police spokesman, Andy Grote, told reporters that the 26-year-old perpetrator in Friday’s supermarket attack near Hamburg was “known as an Islamist but not a Jihadist.”
Though no motive for the attack has been offered, authorities have speculated that the man, who originated from the United Arab Emirates, was a one-time asylum seeker whose application had been turned down. He had not been deported because he was lacking the required identification papers.
Hamburg’s mayor, Olaf Scholz, expressed his anger to reporters, saying “I am outraged by the vicious attack that killed at least one Hamburger today.”
He continued, explaining that “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.”
Authorities have also speculated that the attacker suffered from mental illness.
On Friday, the lone assailant entered a supermarket in the Barmbek region,located in the northern part of the city. There he randomly began stabbing people, killing one 50-year-old German male and injuring six others, one of whom was a 35-year-old man who tried to subdue him.
Witnesses described him leaving the supermarket after the attack and attempting to flee on foot. Passers-by chased him, armed with chairs to protect them from injury. German daily, Bild, quoted a witness, identified as Ralf W, describing the moment he saw “a man smeared with blood running along the other side of the road with a knife. He shouted ‘Allahu Akbar’ as he was running.”
Ralf W added that “People were running after him with improvised weapons, chairs and sticks… they ran after him into a side street.” There the assailant was cornered and held until police arrived on scene and placed him in custody.
Germany has been on high alert since a truck attack last December in a Christmas market left twelve people dead.
