Specialist police have taken over the investigation after a knife-wielding immigrant man stormed a police station shouting “Allah will pay” and declared he was there to kill police officers.
An Islamist armed with a machete stormed into a police station in the German city of Linz in the Rhineland-Palatinate state on Friday in what appeared to be a failed terror attack attempt. He tried to get inside but was blocked by a security gate and was trapped alone inside the premises by police officers who used a Taser to force him into submission.
The suspect, said to be a 29-year-old Albanian immigrant, reportedly shouted the now-familiar “Allah is great” as he attempted to hit him, and investigators who searched his apartment found an Islamic State flag hanging on the wall. Police have acknowledged there was likely an Islamist terror motive, but Welts state He has not been under surveillance by intelligence agencies to date.
He was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder and is awaiting trial as counter-terrorism authorities handle the investigation into the attack.
The attempted attack was the second encounter between German police and suspected Islamic militants in two days, after a gunman was shot dead by police near the Israeli consulate in Munich on Thursday.
The man, an Austrian of “Bosnian descent” carrying a World War II-era rifle and bayonet, opened fire on the man in a city square next to the former headquarters of the Nazi party. The gunman was reportedly previously known to police for possessing Islamic State propaganda.
