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Police hunt suspect who killed 9-year-old and bragged about it online

Police in North Rhine-Westphalia are searching for the man believed to have killed his nine-year-old neighbour and then posted a video gloating about it online.

Published: 7 March 2017 09:49 CET
Updated: 7 March 2017 17:14 CET

Police hunt suspect who killed 9-year-old and bragged about it online

The scene of the crime in Herne. Photo: DPA.

The nine-year-old boy was killed on Monday evening in the Ruhr Valley town of Herne. Police believe his 19-year-old neighbour, Marcel H., is responsible because a user of the restricted access darknet network alerted them to a video posted in which the young man reportedly bragged about the killing.

Police have not disclosed exactly what was depicted in the video, but state interior minister Ralf Jäger said on Tuesday that he could not remember any case where “the murder was filmed and published”.

Images of the suspect also started circulating beyond the darknet on regular, publicly accessible websites, showing the young man with bloody hands next to the body of a boy.

The child was found stabbed and lying dead in the basement of the suspect's house.

Marcel H. is currently on the run and police are urgently searching the area for him because he seemed to indicate he could commit further crimes. Police would not comment on the suspect's possible motive, but noted that he suggested he may attempt suicide.

The suspect is described as 1.75 metres tall, blond and thin, wearing glasses with camouflage pants and a vest.

Photo released by Bochum police of the suspect.

Police have warned anyone who recognizes him not to approach him, as they said the martial artist could be dangerous and is possibly armed. Instead they advise witnesses to call police.

Marcel H. is unemployed and believed to be living alone in the house. The family was reportedly supposed to move and his parents were no longer there.

He also reportedly had little social contact with others, and was not previously known to police.

“We are speechless and shocked,” said town mayor Frank Dudda through a spokesperson. “We are grieving with the relatives.”

The victim's school has brought in ministers and psychologists to offer consultations.

The darknet is a restricted access network that can only be accessed through specific software or authorization. It is often associated with the illegal sale of drugs, weapons and child porn.

Germany arrests Syrian man accused of plotting to kill soldiers

The suspect, an “alleged follower of a radical Islamic ideology”, was arrested on Thursday on charges of planning “a serious act of violence endangering the state”.

The man had acquired two heavy knives “around 40 centimetres (more than one foot) in length” in recent days, prosecutors in Munich said.

He planned to “attack Bundeswehr soldiers” in the city of Hof in northern Bavaria during their lunch break, aiming “to kill as many of them as possible”, prosecutors said.

“The accused wanted to attract attention and create a feeling of insecurity among the population,” they said.

German security services have been on high alert over the threat of Islamist attacks, in particular since the Gaza war erupted on October 7th with the Hamas attacks on Israel.

Police shot dead a man in Munich this month after he opened fire on officers in what was being treated as a suspected “terrorist attack” on the Israeli consulate in Munich.

The shootout fell on the anniversary of the kidnap and killing of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games by Palestinian militants.

The 18-year-old suspect had previously been investigated by authorities in his home country Austria on suspicion of links to terrorism but the case had been dropped.

The incident capped a string of attacks in Germany, which have stirred a sense of insecurity in Germany and fed a bitter debate of immigration.

Three people were killed last month in a suspected Islamist stabbing at a festival in the western city of Solingen.

READ ALSO: ‘Ban asylum seekers’ – How Germany is reacting to Solingen attack

The suspect in the attack, which was claimed by the Islamic State group, was a Syrian man who had been slated for deportation from Germany.

A federal interior ministry spokesman said if an Islamist motive was confirmed in the latest foiled attack, it would be “further evidence of the high threat posed by Islamist terrorism in Germany, which was recently demonstrated by the serious crimes in Mannheim and the attack in Solingen, but also by acts that were fortunately prevented by the timely intervention of the security authorities”.

The Solingen stabbing followed a knife attack in the city of Mannheim in May, which left a policeman dead, and which had also been linked to Islamism by officials.

Germany has responded to the attacks by taking steps to tighten immigration controls and knife laws.

READ ALSO: Debt, migration and the far-right – the big challenges facing Germany this autumn

The government has announced new checks along all of its borders and promised to speed up deportations of migrants who have no right to stay in Germany.

The number of people considered Islamist extremists in Germany fell slightly from 27,480 in 2022 to 27,200 last year, according to a report from the federal domestic intelligence agency.

But Interior Minister Nancy Faeser warned in August that “the threat posed by Islamist terrorism remains high”.

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