MUNICH
\nA German court on Thursday handed a life jail term to an Afghan man for a car-ramming attack in Munich last year which killed a two-year-old girl and her mother and left dozens injured. The Munich court ruled that the crime carried \u201cparticular gravity,\u201d a designation that will make it much harder for the 25-year-old man, named only as Farhad N., to ever win release from prison.
\nHe has been on trial since January, accused of deliberately steering a car into a 1,400-strong trade union march. He was 24 at the time. Prosecutors have demanded he be given a life sentence with added conditions to make early release much less likely. The attack was one of several committed by foreign nationals in the run-up to last year\u2019s general election that inflamed debate on immigration and security.
\nAs well as two counts of murder, Farhad N. initially faced 44 counts of attempted murder, but half of these were later replaced by counts of bodily harm, 19 of them serious. The attack took place as the city prepared to host the Munich Security Conference, a major gathering of high-level figures from the worlds of politics and defense.
\nA Mini Cooper that was driven into the street rally hurled a 37-year-old woman and her young daughter through the air for 10 meters. They sustained severe head injuries, of which they died several days later. An eyewitness quoted by the prosecution described people \u201cbeing flung left and right, like a bowling alley.\u201d
\nThe vehicle came to a halt after 23 meters (75 feet) \u201cbecause its front wheels lost contact with the ground due to people lying in front of and underneath the car,\u201d according to the charge sheet. Prosecutors say Farhad N. acted out of a \u201creligious motivation\u201d and had uttered the words \u201cAllahu Akbar,\u201d meaning \u201cGod is the greatest,\u201d after the car rampage.
\nHowever, he is not believed to have been part of any organized jihadist movement such as the so-called Daesh group. His defense team has asked for him to be sent to a psychiatric facility despite court-appointed experts determining that his mental health problems did not reduce his degree of responsibility.
\nFarhad N. arrived in Germany unaccompanied in 2016, when was 15. His asylum request was rejected but he was able to stay in the country and find work. Police said Farhad N. worked in security and was heavily engaged in fitness training and bodybuilding.
\nThe attack came just days before the February 2025 general election which saw the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) achieve their best-ever result of over 20 percent. The center-right CDU\/CSU came first and its leader Friedrich Merz became chancellor, promising to take a tougher line on immigration to stave off the AfD\u2019s rise. However, since then the CDU\/CSU has slumped while the AfD has established a steady lead in opinion polls.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MUNICH A German court on Thursday handed a life jail term to an Afghan man for a car-ramming attack in Munich last year which killed a two-year-old girl and her mother and left dozens injured. The Munich court ruled that the crime carried \u201cparticular gravity,\u201d a designation that will make it much harder for the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":560547,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-560567","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world"],"yoast_head":"\n