By this, German authorities mean that they did not find an ISIS or al-Qaeda membership card in his wallet, and above all, Please don’t think that there is anything wrong with Merkel’s filling the country with Muslim migrants because of this. But in reality, when Hingst said this, it was only hours after the attack. Police simply hadn’t had time to conduct a thorough investigation into his Internet habits, his bookshelf, his friends and acquaintances, the local mosque, etc. So this was more an expression of what German authorities hoped was the case, and wanted the public to believe, than it was of reality. The German authorities may turn out to be right, but if they do, it won’t be on the basis of the investigation that had been conducted up to the point that Hingst made this statement.
“Knife attacker on Germany bus arrested, nine injured,” AFP, July 20, 2018:
Nine people were injured Friday in an attack by a man wielding a knife on a bus in northern Germany, officials said Friday, although his motive remained unclear.
The packed bus was heading in the direction of Travemuende, a popular beach destination close to the city of Luebeck, when a man pulled the weapon on passengers, Luebeck chief prosecutor Ulla Hingst said.
Regional interior minister for Schleswig-Holstein state, Hans-Joachim Grote, told news agency DPA that six people suffered knife wounds and three others different injuries, while the attacker also punched the bus driver….
“The passengers jumped out of the bus and were screaming. It was terrible. Then the injured were brought out. The perpetrator had a kitchen knife,” a witness who lives close to the scene, Lothar H., told local daily Luebecker Nachrichten.
An unnamed female passenger on the bus said one of those injured had only just given up his seat to an elderly woman, “when the perpetrator stabbed him in the chest.”…
Prosecutor Hingst told mass-market daily BILD that the suspected attacker is “a 34-year-old German citizen of Iranian origin”.
“We have no indication of political radicalisation of any kind,” she added….
While the motive of the perpetrator has not yet been established, Germany has been on high alert after several deadly Islamist extremist attacks….