HALLE, GERMANY – OCTOBER 09: A bus transports rescued parishioners of the Jewish community near the scene of a shooting that has left two people dead on October 9, 2019 in Halle, Germany. Law enforcement authorities, after initially speaking of multiple attackers, are now referring to a single attacker who has been apprehended. A video, apparently streamed by the attacker live and with commentary from the shooting spree, shows him attempt and fail to force his way into the synagogue in Halle. He then, using what he describes as an improvised weapon, shoots a woman happening to pass by his car on the street and drives to a nearby kebab shop, where he shoots a man inside several times. Afterwards he fires at police blocking a street ahead of him, only to be wounded by returned fire. Towards the end of the video he states that he is bleeding and that he has been shot, and calls himself a “complete loser” in an apparent apology to his perceived audience for not delivering the “action” he had anticipated. According to media reports the attacker has been identified as 27-year-old Stephan B. (Photo by Jens Schlueter/Getty Images) Stephan Balliet, 27, confessed to authorities on Oct. 11 for being the gunman behind the Oct. 9 shooting at a synagogue in Halle, Germany that resulted in two dead.
Agence-France Presse (AFP) reports that German federal prosecutors announced that Balliet gave “an extensive confession” that revealed his “far-right and anti-Semitic motives.”
Balliet’s lawyer, Hans-Dieter Weber, told Südwestrundfunk, a German public TV station, that it would have been “nonsensical” for Balliet not to confess to the shooting.
“In his view of the world, he blames others for his own misery and that’s what ultimately triggered his action,” Weber said.
However, Weber told the German publication Der Spiegel that Balliet is not a neo-Nazi.
Balliet had been living with his divorced mother since he was 14 years old; he was a hermit and spent most of his time online. Balliet’s father, who didn’t want to be identified, told the German newspaper Bild that he saw his son often but they always fought because his son “wasn’t at peace with himself or the world. He always blamed others.”
The shooting was livestreamed on Amazon’s Twitch platform; the shooter can be seen calling himself a “total loser” and a “f—ing failure” when he was unable to break down the door to the synagogue. He can also be seen shooting and killing a woman outside of the synagogue and calling her a “pig.”
Federal Prosecutor Peter Frank told reporters on Oct. 10 that the shooter “armed himself with many weapons, some possibly self-made, and had a large quantity of explosives” and “he wanted to mimic similar acts that happened in the past, and he also wanted to incite others to copycat his acts.”
Weber also told Der Spiegel that his client received $800 in BitCoin from an unknown person online before the shooting occurred, but maintained that he had acted alone.
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