VIENNA: Investigators seized electronic devices at the home of a young Austrian who fired shots near Israel’s Munich consulate, but found no weapons or Daesh group propaganda material, authorities said Friday.
German police shot dead the 18-year-old man on Thursday when he fired a vintage rifle at them near the diplomatic building.
They said they were treating it as a “terrorist attack,” apparently timed to coincide with the anniversary of the killings of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympic Games.
Authorities raided the gunman’s home in the Salzburg region, seizing electronic data carriers, Austria’s top security chief Franz Ruf told a press conference in Vienna on Friday.
During the raid, “no weapons or Daesh propaganda” material were found, Ruf added.
Despite being subject to a ban on owning and carrying weapons, the man managed to purchase a vintage carbine rifle fitted with a bayonet with around “fifty rounds of ammunition” for 400 euros ($445) the day before the attack, Ruf said.
He opened fire at around 9:00 am (0700 GMT) near the Israeli consulate, sparking a mobilization of about 500 police in downtown Munich.
At a separate press conference in Munich, prosecutor Gabriele Tilmann said investigators were combing through the gunman’s electronic data but had yet to find conclusive evidence of his motive.
But the “working hypothesis” was that “the perpetrator acted out of Islamist or anti-Semitic motivation,” she told reporters.
Austrian police said on Thursday that the gunman, who had Bosnian roots, had previously been investigated on suspicion of links to terrorism.
Investigators last year found three videos he had recorded in 2021, showing scenes from a computer game “with Islamist content,” prosecutors said in a statement.
In one of them the suspect had used an avatar with a flag of the “al-Nusra Front,” a militant group active in Syria, said Ruf.
But the investigation was dropped in 2023 as there were no indications that he was active in “radical” circles, prosecutors said.
“The mere playing of a computer game or the re-enactment of violent Islamist scenes was not sufficient to prove intent to commit the offense,” they added.
Austrian investigators seize devices at Munich shooter’s home
https://arab.news/g7rdj
Austrian investigators seize devices at Munich shooter’s home
- Authorities raided the gunman’s home in the Salzburg region, seizing electronic data carriers
- During the raid, “no weapons or Daesh propaganda” material were found
France releases suspected Russia ‘shadow fleet’ tanker after fine
- The ship is suspected of being part of a shadow fleet that carries oil for countries such as Russia and Iran
- “The tanker Grinch is leaving French waters after paying several million euros and enduring a costly three-week immobilization in Fos-sur-Mer,” Barrot said
MARSEILLE: France on Tuesday released a tanker called Grinch suspected of being part of Russia’s sanctions-busting “shadow fleet” after its owner paid a fine of several million euros, a minister said.
French forces and their allies boarded the oil tanker last month between Spain and Morocco after it started its journey in Russia. It was escorted to a port near the southern city of Marseille.
Ship tracking websites MarineTraffic and VesselFinder said the vessel had been flying a Comoros flag.
The ship is suspected of being part of a shadow fleet that carries oil for countries such as Russia and Iran in violation of US sanctions.
“The tanker Grinch is leaving French waters after paying several million euros and enduring a costly three-week immobilization in Fos-sur-Mer,” Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said on X.
Russia has reportedly built up a flotilla of old tankers of opaque ownership to get around sanctions imposed by the European Union, the United States and the G7 group of nations, over Moscow’s 2022 all-out invasion of Ukraine.
The sanctions, aimed at limiting Moscow’s revenues to pursue its war, have shut out many tankers carrying Russian oil from Western insurance and shipping systems.
“Evading European sanctions comes at a price. Russia will no longer be able to bankroll its war with impunity through a shadow fleet off our shores,” Barrot said.
The public prosecutor’s office and regional authorities said that, “as part of a guilty plea procedure, the company that owns the vessel was sentenced by the Marseille judicial court to a financial penalty.”
“The company, which has already taken numerous steps in this direction, has committed to obtaining a new flag as soon as possible,” they said in a joint statement, without adding where the owner was based.
A ship called Grinch is under UK sanctions, while another named Carl with the same registration number is sanctioned by the United States and European Union.
The boarding last month was the second of its kind in recent months.
France in September detained a Russian-linked ship called the Boracay, a vessel claiming to be flagged in Benin, a move Russian President Vladimir Putin condemned as “piracy.”
The Boracay’s Chinese captain is to stand trial in France next week.
The European Union lists 598 vessels suspected of being part of the “shadow fleet” that are banned from European ports and maritime services.
