At least four have been injured, including Syrian and Afghan nationals, as a car rammed into a group of people in the western German city of Bottrop on Tuesday, with police suspecting xenophobic motives behind the attack, a joint statement by the Essen prosecutor's office and police of the cities of Recklinghausen and Muenster said.
BERLIN (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 01st January, 2019) At least four have been injured, including Syrian and Afghan nationals, as a car rammed into a group of people in the western German city of Bottrop on Tuesday, with police suspecting xenophobic motives behind the attack, a joint statement by the Essen prosecutor's office and police of the cities of Recklinghausen and Muenster said.Earlier in the day, the 50-year-old driver repeatedly tried to hit passers-by in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia first in the city of Bottrop, then in Essen, according to the statement. Before the attack in question, the suspect also sought to drive into a pedestrian in Bottrop, and then sought to ram a car into a group of people at a bus stop in Essen.
"At Berliner Platz, he once again rammed [his car] into a group of people. As a result, at least four people, including Syrian and Afghan nationals, were injured, with some of them sustaining serious injuries," the statement, published on Presseportal.de website, said.
The driver was detained. According to the statement, he was making "anti-foreigner comments" during detention, and police have information that the attacker might have some mental issues.
The investigation believes that it was a "targeted attack which could have been caused by the driver's anti-foreigner convictions," the statement added.
