See more Daily Mail on Google - save us as a Preferred SourceBy SABRINA PENTY, FOREIGN NEWS REPORTER Published: 11:02 BST, 6 August 2026 | Updated: 11:22 BST, 6 August 2026
A German court on Thursday handed a life jail term to an Afghan man for a car-ramming attack in Munich last year which killed a two-year-old girl and her mother and left dozens injured.The Munich court ruled that the crime carried 'particular gravity', a designation that will make it much harder for 25-year-old Farhad Noori to ever be released from prison.Noori drove his Mini Cooper into a street rally, hurling a 37-year-old woman and her young daughter through the air for 10 metres. They sustained severe head injuries, and they died several days later.An eyewitness quoted by the prosecution described people 'being flung left and right, like a bowling alley'.The vehicle came to a halt after 75 feet 'because its front wheels lost contact with the ground due to people lying in front of and underneath the car', according to the charge sheet.Prosecutors said Noori acted out of a 'religious motivation' and had uttered the words 'Allahu Akbar', meaning 'God is the greatest', after the car rampage.However, he is not believed to have been part of any organised jihadist movement such as the so-called Islamic State (IS) group.The attack was one of several committed by foreign nationals in the run-up to last year's general election that inflamed debate on immigration and security. Farhad N. was born in Kabul and moved to Germany seeking asylum in 2016Farhad Noori, 25, (pictured, centre) arrives in court on August 6Members of the emergency services work at the scene where a car drove into a crowd in the southern German city of Munich on February 13, 2025 As well as two counts of murder, Noori initially faced 44 counts of attempted murder, but half of these were later replaced by counts of bodily harm, 19 of them serious.The attack took place as the city prepared to host the Munich Security Conference, a major gathering of high-level figures from the worlds of politics and defence.His defence team had asked for him to be sent to a psychiatric facility despite court-appointed experts determining that his mental health problems did not reduce his degree of responsibility.Noori arrived in Germany unaccompanied in 2016, when he was 15.His asylum request was rejected, but he was able to stay in the country and find work.Police said Noori worked in security and was heavily engaged in fitness training and bodybuilding.He is thought to have been radicalised in the months leading up to the attack by consuming content online from radical Afghan preachers.The attack came just days before the February 2025 general election, which saw the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) achieve its best-ever result of over 20 per cent. Objects, including a baby carriage, lying on the street at the scene of the deadly crash on February 13 2025 People place a candle in tribute to victims at the makeshift memorial set up at the scene where a car drove into a crowd in Munich, southern Germany on February 15, 2025The centre-right CDU/CSU came first, and its leader Friedrich Merz became chancellor, promising to take a tougher line on immigration to stave off the AfD's rise.However, since then the CDU/CSU has slumped while the AfD has established a steady lead in opinion polls.
