Kosovo Man Says He Shot U.S. Airmen After Watching 'Redacted'

Frankfurt attacker 'can't understand myself how I could have acted this way'

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A Kosovo man accused of killing two U.S. airmen and and wounding two others in a March shooting spree at the Frankfurt airport confessed to the attack in a German court on Wednesday, but said he didn't know why he had done it. According to an indictment, 21-year-old Arid Uka followed two U.S. from the airport terminal to their bus, where he asked one of them for a light. He then shot the man dead, walked onto the bus, and shot another dead. He wounded two more, and put his gun to the head of a fifth, but the trigger jammed. The BBC reports on what he said in court on Wednesday:

Uka said he carried out the attack after watching a video purporting to show US servicemen raping a Muslim girl in Iraq.

In fact, the video was a scene from Brian De Palma's anti-war film, Redacted.

"I thought what I saw in that video, these people would do in Afghanistan," Uka said.

"I killed two people and opened fire on three others. Today I can't understand myself how I could have acted this way," he said.

Uka faces two charges of murder and three of attempted murder. According to the BBC, he's likely to get 15 years in prison if the court accepts his confession.

This article is from the archive of our partner The Wire.