A German court has sentenced a 25-year-old Afghan national to life imprisonment for deliberately driving a car into a trade union demonstration in Munich in February 2025, killing two people and injuring dozens.
The Munich Higher Regional Court found the defendant, identified under German privacy rules as Farhad N., guilty of two counts of murder and 23 counts of attempted murder. The court also classified his crimes as being of particular severity, a designation that effectively rules out the usual possibility of release after 15 years.
The attack occurred on February 13, 2025, when the defendant drove his vehicle into a demonstration organised by the Verdi trade union in central Munich. A 37-year-old woman and her two-year-old daughter later died from their injuries, while more than 40 other people were injured.
Prosecutors said the defendant admitted carrying out the attack and told investigators that his actions were motivated by his religious beliefs and what he described as the suffering of Muslims in predominantly Islamic countries. Authorities treated the case as an ideologically motivated attack.
The incident occurred shortly before the 2025 Munich Security Conference and during an already intense national debate over migration and security in Germany.
Thursday’s life sentence brings the criminal trial over one of Munich’s deadliest recent attacks to a close, while the case continues to resonate in Germany’s wider discussions about extremism, migration policy and the protection of public gatherings.
