The Interior Minister of Hamburg, Andy Grote, on Saturday thanked bystanders who had caught the fleeing knifeman near the supermarket where he attacked shoppers in city-state’s Barmbek district before police arrived. Deutsche Welle reports.
Friday’s civil arrest was “very courageous and very determined,” Grote told a press conference, adding that shoppers’ outings had been turned into a “nightmare.”
The attacker was a rejected asylum seeker, who earlier on Friday had inquired at a city office for foreigners about whether deportation papers had arrived.
The attacker had become radicalized but also suffered psychological problems, Grote said.
“It remains unclear which was the overriding element,” he said, adding there were no indications of a terror network behind the attack.
The suspect had no criminal record in Germany, with the exception of an alleged shoplifting incident in April that was dropped as a “slight” matter, according to Jörg Fröhlich from the Hamburg state prosecutors’ office.
He is likely to be charged with murder and five counts of attempted murder, Fröhlich said.
Police on Saturday said they had searched a refugee shelter in the Hamburg district of Langenhorn, where the 26-year-old suspect, a Palestinian born in the United Arab Emirates, was believed to have been staying. Nothing was found, police said.