- Germany’s government has condemned the recent killing of a 20-year-old cashier during an argument over wearing a mask.
- Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed her revulsion at the “heinous” act, which took place at a petrol station.
- The customer, angered after being asked to wear a mask while buying beer, turned himself over to police the next day.
Berlin – German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Wednesday expressed revulsion over the “heinous” killing of a petrol station cashier by a customer angry about being asked to wear a mask while buying beer.
The killing of the 20-year-old student late on Saturday in the western town of Idar-Oberstein is believed to be the first in Germany linked to the government’s coronavirus rules.
“The German government condemns this targeted killing in the strongest terms,” Merkel’s spokesperson Ulrike Demmer told reporters.
Demmer continued:
“We mourn the death of this young man who was viciously shot dead”.
The unnamed suspect, a 49-year-old German man, walked to a police station the following day to turn himself in. He was arrested and has confessed to the murder.
Extremist chatrooms
Ahead of Germany’s general election on Sunday, the case has sparked shock and outrage across the political spectrum as fears grow that the anti-mask movement is radicalising.
An interior ministry spokesperson told the same briefing that the killing seemed to be an “isolated case” and that the movement of opponents to measures to contain the coronavirus outbreak had grown smaller as restrictions ease.
However, he acknowledged that “some actors” in the movement appeared to have grown more extremist and potentially violent, with far-right chatrooms playing a growing role in stoking hate.
Media reports found the killer had also been active in such chatrooms.
Germany’s “Querdenker (Lateral Thinkers)” movement emerged last year as the loudest voice against the government’s coronavirus curbs.
Its protests have at times drawn tens of thousands of demonstrators, attracting a wide mix of people including vaccine skeptics, neo-Nazis and members of the far-right AfD party.
-AFP