What we know about Munich car ramming which has left dozens injured

13 February 2025, 14:36 | Updated: 15 February 2025, 18:35

A mother and her two-year-old daughter have died - and more than 30 people were injured - after a car drove into a crowd in Munich, police have said.

The incident took place on Thursday at a square close to the city's central train station at around 10.30am (9.30am UK time), officials said.

Here is everything we know:

What happened?

The car - a cream-coloured Mini Cooper - was driven into the crowd on a street called Seidlstrasse in a central area of the city.

The crowd was taking part in a demonstration organised by a trade union, and a police car was following them as they walked, deputy police chief Christian Huber said.

"Then a vehicle approached it from behind," he added.

"It approached the police car to overtake it, and then accelerated and drove into the back of the demonstration."

The badly damaged Mini could be seen after the attack along with items of clothing and bags, a broken pram, a shoe and a pair of glasses scattered across the floor.

A man was arrested at the scene after police fired a shot at the car vehicle.

What we know about the victims

Police on Saturday said a 37-year-old mother from Munich and her baby were the first fatalities from the incident.

Officials had earlier said at least 36 people were injured.

In Friday's news conference, they said one adult and one child were "very seriously injured" and eight other people were seriously injured.

Who is the suspect?

The man arrested was a 24-year-old Afghan national, Farhad N, who came to Germany as an asylum seeker.

Officials say Farhad N has lived in Munich since he arrived as an unaccompanied minor in 2016, and has no previous convictions.

The man's asylum application was rejected, but he had not been forced to leave due to security concerns in Afghanistan and he was in Germany legally with a work permit.

Prosecutors say he is now under investigation on 36 counts of attempted murder as well as bodily harm and dangerous interference with road traffic.

Do we know the motives?

At the news conference on Friday, prosecutor Gabriele Tilmann said the suspect appeared to have had a "religious motivation".

In questioning, he "gave an explanation that I would summarise as religious motivation," she said, adding the suspect shouted "Allahu Akbar", or "God is great", to police and then prayed after his arrest.

She said he admitted to police that he "deliberately drove into the participants of the demonstration".

"I'm very cautious about making hasty judgements, but based on everything we know at the moment, I would venture to speak of an Islamist motivation for the crime," she added.

She clarified that the authorities had no reason to believe that the perpetrator was affiliated with any Islamist or terrorist organisations and that they had not found any evidence of him having accomplices.

She said they were now looking through his devices to see "whether other people knew about the attack before it happened, or if he was part of a network".

The incident happened shortly before world leaders including US vice president JD Vance and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy arrived in the southern city for the Munich Security Conference, which started on Friday.

But police have said the incident is not thought to be related to the conference.

Incident comes amid immigration tensions

Security and immigration have been in sharp focus in Germany ahead of a federal election next week and following a string of violent attacks, with the far-right party AfD party doing well in polls.

Two months ago, a Saudi doctor was accused of driving his car into a crowd at a Christmas market in Magdeburg, killing six and injuring hundreds.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz described the Munich incident as a "terrible attack" and said the perpetrator "must be punished and he must leave the country".

Read more from Sky News:
Suspected car attack will fill Germans with dread
One Briton dead and three injured in New Zealand crash

His comments come after the government said last year it was resuming flights for convicted criminals of Afghan nationality to their home country.

"It is very important for me to get the message across that anyone who commits crimes in Germany will not only be severely punished and sent to prison, they must also expect that they will not be able to continue their stay in Germany," he said.

"That's why I managed to get the government I lead to resume and carry out repatriations to Afghanistan, despite the lack of diplomatic relations," he said.

He added: "We have already organised such a flight with criminals... we are also in the process of doing this in other cases. And not just once, but on an ongoing basis.

"This perpetrator cannot count on any leniency, he must be punished and he must leave the country."

(c) Sky News 2025: What we know about Munich car ramming which has left dozens injured