Car ramming in Munich injures at least 30 on eve of major security conference

The car ramming that injured at least 36 people in Munich on Thursday, ahead of a major security conference featuring world leaders and defense leaders, was an intentional attack and is being treated as Islamic extremism, authorities said Friday.

Gabriele Tilmann, a senior public prosecutor, told a news conference in the city that the unidentified suspect admitted in a police interview that he drove into the crowd purposefully.

"The reason that he gave could be summarized as a religious reason. I can't say more about it, but what he said would lead us to conclude that it was a religious motive," she said.

"We don't want to jump to any conclusions, but given what has happened, we would assume this was an Islamic extremist attack," she added. After his arrest Thursday the suspect prayed, she said.

The suspect, a 24-year-old Afghan national, was arrested on suspicion of 36 counts of attempted murder, as well as grievous bodily harm and reckless driving.

He drove a white Mini into a crowd of 1,500 people marching through central Munich as part of a trade union demonstration. This was not linked to the security conference, police said.

The security conference is a high-profile annual meeting that discusses geopolitical matters. This year, the summit is dominated by the course of the ongoing war in Ukraine. Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio are speaking at the event.

Tilmann also said that there is no evidence so far that the suspect is part of any Islamist organization or was working with any accomplices. Detectives had only just started investigating digital evidence from his phone and various social media accounts, where he posted about his Islamic faith and fitness regime. Police have searched his apartment but didn’t find any evidence linked to the attack.