A German court has jailed an Afghan migrant for life over the 2025 attack on a protest march through Munich that killed a mother and child and injured dozens more.
The 25-year-old Afghan migrant named only as ‘Farhad N’ due to German privacy laws has been sentenced to life in prison with reduced chance of parole after he was found guilty of two counts of murder, 23 of attempted murder, 19 of aggravated assault, and three of assault. The migrant male had driven a BMW Mini car into a demonstration in Munich city centre on February 13th 2025 and called out “Allahu Akbar” as he was being arrested, reports Euronews.
To get at the protest, Farhad had to expertly drive his vehicle through the escort of police trucks protecting the trade union demonstration, splitting the vehicles with just two inches to spare, a feat the judge said showed his level of determination and attention, and disproving the defence that the Afghan had accidentally ploughed into dozens of people because he was sleepy.
The impact of hitting the first pedestrians sent a mother and her two-year-old child flying over 30 feet, killing both. Dozens more people were injured, some very seriously, before the vehicle came to a standstill.
As well as calling out “Allahu Akbar”, Farhad was said to have bene holding a Quran as he drove his car through the crowd, and lifted his index finger in salute as he was arrested, a sign common to Islam and signifying that there is only one God, Allah.
The court heard the killer had arrived in Germany in 2016 as an unaccompanied and allegedly minor migrant who presented as 15-years-old, although German broadsheet Die Welt noted he appeared much older in court than his now legal age of 25. Housed in Germany by a church charity, the man’s asylum application was lodged on the basis of persecution in his home country but was rejected as the German tribunal that heard his case did not find his story credible.
Farhad N. was ordered to be deported but this was paused after the Taliban took control of Afghanistan. It is stated he only ever worked as a security guard but had tens of thousands of followers on his bodybuilding social media accounts.
It was stated that from 2024 on, the man took a new interest in his faith and in being a “good Muslim”, giving up vices and upbraiding friends if they didn’t go to mosque. Judge Michael Höhne is reported to have told the court in his sentencing remarks: “Under the influence of conservative and anti-Western clerics online, he developed exaggerated religious ideas… [he] blamed the USA and other Western states for the suffering of Muslims.”
Farhad did not engage with the trial and did not reveal a motivation, but the prosecutor told the court “the act was, and this must be stated clearly, aimed at the destruction of human life” and it is believed he thought attacking Germans was the will of Allah and a “godly act” because of Western involvement in Afghanistan and Gaza.
Defence lawyers argued against a life sentence and said their client, who they claimed showed signs of schizophrenia, should be committed to a mental institute instead.
Instead, the Higher Regional Court of Munich found Farhad N. had a “special severity of guilt”, making it much less likely he could ever get parole.
As reported at the time, the high-profile and murderous attack came just hours before the major annual Munich Security Conference, when world leaders descend on the city to discuss policy and challenges facing global defence. U.S. Vice President JD Vance addressed the conference the day after the attack and slammed European elites for keeping their doors open to migrant killers. He said: “How many times must we suffer these appalling setbacks before we change course and take our shared civilisation in a new direction?”.