Originally appeared at A-specto, translated by Valentina Tzoneva exclusively for SouthFront
An 18-year old German of Iranian origin opened fire with a pistol at a shopping center in Munich, and then he killed himself. His motives are still unknown. The police has not called the case an act of terrorism as the contacts of the youth are not clarified yet, as well as whether he has links to Islamic structures. Ten people have been shot dead, including the shooter, and 16 are injured, including three in critical condition. The youth had dual citizenship. Eyewitnesses claim that the killer shouted: “I am German.” The version that he is a right extremist in Breivik’s style is brought up, as the act coincided with the date that marks five years since the terror in Oslo. On 22nd July, the right radical from Norway, Andesh Breivik, killed a large number of people in protest against immigrants, Muslims and tolerance to multiculturalism in Europe. Breivik explained his motives with an attempt to protect Christianity in Europe and it sounds quite untenable for a German of Iranian origin to be his follower. Because of the case, today, Saturday, in Berlin a meeting of the government is taking place with Angela Merkel participating.
Le Mond newspaper stated that a part of the photos that the world’s media is spreading, such as the event in the German shopping centre, are in fact, photos from anti-terrorist drills in a shopping centre in Great Britain from May this year, and another part are from South Africa. The killer is a resident of Munich. Some media state that the number of those injured is 23. There are no facts confirming Islamic terrorism. Some 2,300 policemen have been mobilised for the case, special services and support groups from Austria. They acted at the location of the incident. While on the run, the killer was wounded by the police patrol but he managed to escape. The body of the youth-terrorist was discovered at 20:30, about a kilometre away from the place where the shooting took place. The police has only confirmed his death. He has had with him a small red backpack, which the police is investigating. Earlier, three other shooters have been mentioned as participants, but later on, this version was rejected. The investigation confirmed that the other two are witnesses of the shooting. According to the press-conference of the Munich police, the killer has not been known to the local police and his motives are not clear. The situation in the city is back to normal, but the police appealed to citizens to be cautious. Public transport has resumed functioning, as has the central railway station.
The father of one young Kosovan victim, Dijamant Zabergja, displayed his son’s photo
These events took place four days after the axe attack also in Bavaria, when a young Islamist wounded four tourists from Hong Kong in the train before being shot dead by the police. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the case, but the German government believes that in reality, the terrorist’s organisation is not the real mentor. Since 2011, there have been several similar cases on German territory caused by radicalised individuals. The first Islamic attack on German land took place in March 2011 in Frankfurt. At the airport in the city, a man opened fire against American solders coming back from Afghanistan, two are dead and two are wounded. In February 2016 in Hanover, during an identity check ant the central station in the city, a patrolling policeman is stabbed with a knife by a young German woman close to radical Islamists. Later on, it had been established that the woman wanted to join Islamic State but did not manage. In April 2016 in Essen, a bomb exploded at a wedding in an Indian community in town, three are wounded, one of them critically. After the attack, the German police arrested three who are connected to the Salafists; two are minors – both 16-years-old.
There are plenty of questionable ‘facts’ offered by German media and police officials about the shooting. Among the most popular conspiracy theories is one that calls into question something that should be relatively easy for German police to verify: the supposed age and nationality of the shooter. The other is the story about multiple shooters/shooting locations that morphed into a single shooter. Police always seem to have to kill these lone shooters, so we’ll never know his side of the story.
His now-deleted Facebook page shows he’s been in Germany for over five years, and likely from a Turkish clan of the same name that comes from the the Homs, Syria area. Sonboly (or any of its alternate spellings) isn’t really a Persian family name, so I’m curious how German authorities determined he was an Iranian immigrant that’s only been in the country two years. Sonboly lived in a Turkish immigrant area of Munich. Hard to believe a Shiite Iranian would settle in a Sunni Turkish neighborhood.
And just like in the U.S. shootings, initial reports were of multiple shooters. Someone should have a record of those calls to emergency services. I would love to know what those people think now, not just what authorities have already dismissed as multiple, simultaneous, similar ‘mistakes’. I don’t expect all the calls to have been consistent in their details, but it seems odd that they are all consistent in being wrong about the number or location of shooters.
There’s all kinds of possible explanations for the discrepancies, but German authorities and media do the same thing the U.S. and French media have done: stick with their manufactured narrative and dismiss any inconsistencies as ‘conspiracy theory’ – hoping inconvenient information just goes away. They seem quick to censor Facebook and Twitter, yet cannot provide the most basic details of their own investigation. This proves nothing one way or the other, but does continue to build a general distrust of the media, authorities and ‘the official story’. Governments and media outlets seem oblivious to how they are destroying their own credibility every time one of these incidents happen.
Crazy conspiracy theories here: Shoebat