HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

The 2011 Frankfurt Airport shooting occurred on 2 March 2011 at
Frankfurt Airport Frankfurt Airport (; german: link=no, Flughafen Frankfurt Main , also known as ''Rhein-Main-Flughafen'') is a major international airport located in Frankfurt, the fifth-largest city of Germany and one of the world's leading financial centres ...
in Germany. The shooter, Arid Uka, was arrested and charged with killing two United States Airmen and seriously wounding two others. He was convicted of murder and attempted murder and sentenced to life in prison on 10 February 2012. According to the court judge at
Oberlandesgericht An ''Oberlandesgericht'' (plural – ''Oberlandesgerichte''; OLG, en, Higher Regional Court, or in Berlin '' Kammergericht'': KG) is a higher court in Germany. There are 24 OLGs in Germany and they deal with civil and criminal matters. They a ...
Frankfurt, this was the first terrorist attack in Germany in which the perpetrator had an Islamist motive.


Shooting

According to the German investigators, Uka targeted a
United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the Aerial warfare, air military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part ...
bus parked outside the terminal building that was supposed to transport fifteen U.S. airmen to Ramstein Air Base. He reportedly walked up to a waiting airman, asked him for a cigarette, and wanted to know whether the airmen were bound for
Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...
. When the airman said yes, according to German prosecutor Rainer Griesbaum, Uka waited for the airman to turn away and then shot him in the back of the head, killing him. Shouting "
Allahu Akbar Allah (; ar, الله, translit=Allāh, ) is the common Arabic word for God. In the English language, the word generally refers to God in Islam. The word is thought to be derived by contraction from '' al- ilāh'', which means "the god", a ...
!" the attacker then entered the bus, shooting and killing the driver, and continued to fire three shots at two other airmen, wounding them. When he pointed his pistol at the head of another airman and pulled the trigger, the weapon jammed. Uka fled, but was pursued by the civilian airport employee Lamar Joseph Conner and Staff Sergeant Trevor Donald Brewer and shortly afterwards overpowered by two German police officers. He was subsequently arrested. The two victims killed in the shooting were Senior Airman Nicholas Alden, 25, of
South Carolina )'' Animis opibusque parati'' ( for, , Latin, Prepared in mind and resources, links=no) , anthem = " Carolina";" South Carolina On My Mind" , Former = Province of South Carolina , seat = Columbia , LargestCity = Charleston , LargestMetro = ...
and Airman First Class Zachary Cuddeback, 21, of
Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...
. Staff Sgt. Kristoffer Schneider was shot in the right temple and lost his sight in one eye. The right side of his face had to be rebuilt with titanium, and he suffers head pain and seizures. Part of his skull also had to be removed after an infection. Schneider was medically retired in 2012. Edgar Veguilla was hit in the jaw and arm and suffered nerve damage. Conner and Brewer later received the
Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany The Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (german: Verdienstorden der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, or , BVO) is the only federal decoration of Germany. It is awarded for special achievements in political, economic, cultural, intellect ...
in a ceremony on 16 January 2012. Federal Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich presented the decoration, citing their "exemplary courage and action which helped the Federal Police arrest the suspect".


Perpetrator

Arid Uka, the 21-year-old perpetrator, was a
Kosovo Kosovo ( sq, Kosova or ; sr-Cyrl, Косово ), officially the Republic of Kosovo ( sq, Republika e Kosovës, links=no; sr, Република Косово, Republika Kosovo, links=no), is a partially recognised state in Southeast Euro ...
-born ethnic Albanian who had lived in Germany since he was one year old; his family having lived in there for four decades. His grandfather was a
Kosovo Albanian The Albanians of Kosovo ( sq, Shqiptarët e Kosovës, ), also commonly called Kosovo Albanians, Kosovar/Kosovan Albanians or Kosovars/Kosovans, constitute the largest ethnic group in Kosovo. Kosovo Albanians belong to the ethnic Albanian sub-gr ...
imam, while his parents and two brothers led secular lives. He had been working at the airport post office. In the months before the attack, Uka underwent a late-adolescent crisis. Uka left school before his university-entrance diploma, but didn't tell his family. Instead, he told them that he had finished the diploma successfully. His family members, former friends, and one of his employers described him as introverted, polite, and not aggressive. Months before the shooting, Uka broke ties to all his friends and retreated. During this time, he was extensively surfing the web visiting websites with Salafi jihadist content. He started dressing in Salafist dress, and began to study Arabic. Uka decided to join the fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan, but failed to do so since he failed to establish the right contacts. Via the internet, Uka managed to establish contact with Sheik Abdellatif of the so-called Da'wa group, who preached in two mosques in Frankfurt. The Salafi mosque of these two is considered as a meeting-point for radical Islamists. Several well-known Islamists have been seen there. An early example of Salafist
lone wolf terrorism A lone wolf attack, or lone actor attack, is a particular kind of mass murder, committed in a public setting by an individual who plans and commits the act on their own. In the United States, such attacks are usually committed with firearms. I ...
in Europe, Uka's sole contacts with extremists was online, he never had direct personal contact and was never involved in physical network. According to German authorities, Uka confessed to the killings when interrogated after the shooting. Uka's lawyer said that the motivation for the shooting was a video on YouTube, which showed US soldiers raping Iraqi Muslim women. Uka was convinced that the video was genuine, but it was in fact a clip taken from '' Redacted'', an American film based on the Mahmudiyah massacre. On the internet, Uka posted on several Islamist forums, later claiming that through the content and the discussions in these forums, he came to believe that his fellow Muslims were in global war with the United States. Uka was also influenced by jihadist nasheed, including nasheed made by
Abou Maleeq Denis Mamadou Gerhard Cuspert (18 October 1975 – 17 January 2018), also known by his stage name Deso Dogg and his ''nom de guerre'' Abu Talha al-Almani, was a German rapper who became a member of the Islamic State.Mekhennet, Souad. "Osama’s n ...
, who would later join the
Islamic State An Islamic state is a state that has a form of government based on Islamic law (sharia). As a term, it has been used to describe various historical polities and theories of governance in the Islamic world. As a translation of the Arabic term ...
.


Trial and sentence

During Uka's trial, his defence lawyer described him as a non-typical violent criminal who is neither religiously motivated nor an Islamist terrorist, while the
Attorney General of Germany The Public Prosecutor General at the Federal Court of Justice (german: Generalbundesanwalt or ''Generalbundesanwältin beim Bundesgerichtshof'' (GBA), lit.: "General Federal Attorney at the Federal Court of Justice") is the federal prosecutor of G ...
named Uka as a single perpetrator, which was applied for a sentence of life imprisonment plus a finding of "exceptional gravity of guilt". On 10 February 2012, the Hessian State Superior Court (''
Oberlandesgericht An ''Oberlandesgericht'' (plural – ''Oberlandesgerichte''; OLG, en, Higher Regional Court, or in Berlin '' Kammergericht'': KG) is a higher court in Germany. There are 24 OLGs in Germany and they deal with civil and criminal matters. They a ...
'' Frankfurt am Main) sentenced Uka to life imprisonment for two counts of murder and three counts of attempted murder with the determination of an "exceptional gravity of guilt", which means that he will not be eligible for parole after having served fifteen years. Because he was sentenced to more than three years imprisonment, he will be deported to
Kosovo Kosovo ( sq, Kosova or ; sr-Cyrl, Косово ), officially the Republic of Kosovo ( sq, Republika e Kosovës, links=no; sr, Република Косово, Republika Kosovo, links=no), is a partially recognised state in Southeast Euro ...
after having served his sentence as he does not hold German citizenship.


See also

*
List of Islamist terrorist attacks The following is a list of Islamist terrorist attacks. 1940s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2001-2010 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011-2020 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 ...


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Frankfurt Airport shooting 2011 crimes in Germany 2011 in military history 2011 mass shootings in Europe 2011 murders in Germany Islamic terrorist incidents in 2011 March 2011 crimes March 2011 events in Germany Terrorist incidents in Germany in 2011 21st century in Frankfurt 21st-century history of the United States Air Force American people murdered abroad Crime in Frankfurt Islamic terrorism in Germany Spree shootings in Germany Terrorist attacks on airports Terrorist incidents on buses in Europe Mass shootings in Germany