A Munich court sentenced Farhad N., a 25-year-old Afghan migrant, to life in prison for a February 13, 2025 car-ramming that killed a mother and her two-year-old daughter and wounded dozens, finding the attack religiously motivated and ruling out early release under a “special severity of guilt” designation.
The Higher Regional Court of Munich convicted Farhad N. on two counts of murder, 23 counts of attempted murder, 19 counts of aggravated assault, and three counts of assault for driving a BMW Mini into a labor union demonstration in the city center. The attack left a 37-year-old mother and her two-year-old daughter dead and wounded 44 others, some with life-threatening injuries. Judge Michael Höhne declared “special severity of guilt,” which generally bars the usual parole review after 15 years for life sentences. That ruling makes early release extremely unlikely in this case.
The court pieced motive together from the defendant’s online activity and actions at the scene because Farhad N. refused to engage with the trial and offered no direct motive. Prosecutors said the act was aimed at killing as many people as possible and cited his behavior when arrested: he shouted “Allahu Akbar,” held a Quran, and raised his index finger in an Islamist salute. The initial impact of the crash sent the mother and infant more than 30 feet, and footage and testimony showed the defendant squeezing past a police truck escort with roughly two inches to spare.
In sentencing remarks Judge Höhne said, “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.” The court concluded Farhad N. viewed the attack as a “godly act” and believed targeting Germans was justified by Western policies in Afghanistan and Gaza. Prosecutors emphasized the deadly intent, and one summed it bluntly: “the act was, and this must be stated clearly, aimed at the destruction of human life.”
German outlets cited the court as finding he “wanted to attack and kill arbitrarily chosen people in Germany as a reaction to the situation in Islamic countries and prove himself to be a ‘good Muslim.'” That conclusion grew out of social media evidence and witnesses who described a shift in his behavior in 2024. He had amassed tens of thousands of followers on bodybuilding accounts, worked as a security guard, and increasingly turned toward strict religious observance while denouncing friends who did not attend mosque.
Farhad N. came to Germany in 2016 as an unaccompanied minor, claiming to be 15 years old, and was housed by a church charity. He applied for asylum but a tribunal rejected his story and ordered him deported. The deportation was never executed after the Taliban took control of Afghanistan and Germany paused removals to that country, allowing him to remain and build a public profile.
Defense lawyers argued he showed signs of schizophrenia and urged commitment to a psychiatric institution instead of prison, but the court rejected that claim. Judge Höhne pointed to the defendant’s precision behind the wheel—threading a two-inch gap between police vehicles—as evidence of determination and attention incompatible with the defense’s claim that drowsiness or accident explained the action. The court treated the drive and timing as deliberate rather than the result of impaired capacity.
The attack happened hours before the Munich Security Conference opened, ensuring eyes on the carnage from an international audience. Chancellor Olaf Scholz said at the time, “This perpetrator cannot hope for any leniency. He must be punished and he must leave the country.” U.S. Vice President JD Vance used the moment to press Europe on immigration and security, asking, “How many times must we suffer these appalling setbacks before we change course and take our shared civilisation in a new direction?”
Prosecutor Gabriele Tilmann, who handled the initial interrogation, told reporters that he had “gave an explanation that I would summarise as religious motivation.” That early assessment matched the court’s later findings, which relied on his writings, online interactions, and gestures at arrest to establish a motive rooted in extremist ideology. Witnesses and investigators traced a clear arc from online radical content to violent action.
The timeline makes the case read like a list of bureaucratic failures: a rejected asylum claim, an unexecuted deportation order, a pause on removals after the Taliban takeover, and no meaningful intervention as his online activity shifted toward extremism. He remained in the country for years, working and building followers while his views hardened. The fact pattern raises sharp questions about border control, asylum processing, and the systems meant to monitor radicalization.
The court’s “particularly serious” guilt finding effectively removes the usual realistic prospect of parole, an outcome rare under Germany’s sentencing framework where parole consideration often becomes possible after 15 years. The sentence delivers legal accountability, but it also stands as a grim reminder that reactive punishment follows preventable failures. The attack cost two lives and changed dozens more in a matter of seconds, and the record now shows how gaps at multiple checkpoints let a dangerous individual stay in place until tragedy struck.
