An Afghan man went on trial in Germany on Friday accused of ramming a car into a crowd in Munich last year, killing a two-year-old girl and her mother and injuring dozens.
The suspect, partially identified as Farhad N., 25, faces two charges of murder and 44 of attempted murder, with prosecutors saying he acted out of a "religious motivation" and expected to die in the attack.
The vehicle rampage in February 2025 was one of several deadly attacks linked to migrants which inflamed a heated debate on immigration ahead of a general election that month.
Farhad N. is accused of deliberately steering his car into a 1,400-strong trade union street rally in Munich on February 13.
The vehicle came to a halt after 23 metres (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.
A 37-year-old woman and her young daughter were both hurled through the air for 10 metres and sustained severe head injuries, of which they died several days later.
Prosecutors have said Kabul-born Farhad N. "committed the act out of excessive religious motivation", and that he had uttered the words "Allahu Akbar", meaning "God is the greatest", after the car rampage.
"He believed he was obliged to attack and kill randomly selected people in Germany in response to the suffering of Muslims in Islamic countries," they said when he was charged in August.
However, he is not believed to have been part of any Islamist militant movement such as the Islamic State group.
The trial is scheduled to run for 38 days until the end of June.
- Spate of attacks -
Farhad N. arrived in Germany in 2016 as an unaccompanied teenager, having travelled overland at the height of the mass migrant influx to Europe.
His asylum request was rejected but he was spared deportation, found work with a series of jobs and was able to remain in the country, German media have reported.
Police said Farhad N. worked in security and was heavily engaged in fitness training and bodybuilding.
The Munich attack came a month after another Afghan man had carried out a knife attack on a kindergarten group that killed two people, including a two-year-old boy, in the city of Aschaffenburg.
The perpetrator was later confined to a psychiatric facility after judges found he had acted during an acute psychotic episode.
In December 2024, six people were killed and hundreds wounded when a car ploughed into a Christmas market in the eastern city of Magdeburg. A Saudi man was arrested and is currently on trial.
Several Syrian nationals were also arrested over attacks or plots at around the same time, including a stabbing spree that killed three people at a street festival in the city of Solingen.
Germany took in more than a million asylum seekers in 2015-2016 at the height of Europe's migrant crisis -- an influx that has proved deeply divisive and fuelled the rise of the far-right AfD.
Conservative Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who took power last May, has vowed to crack down on criminal migrants and has ramped up deportations of convicts to Afghanistan.
Germany in December also deported a man to Syria for the first time since that country's civil war broke out in 2011.
By Ralf Isermann