Albanian man charged with murder for shooting 2 US Airmen

[High_Gravity]

Arid Uka, Albanian Man, Charged In Frankfurt Airport Shooting

BERLIN — German prosecutors said Thursday that they have filed murder charges against a 21-year-old Kosovo Albanian in the slaying of two U.S. airmen outside Frankfurt's airport and alleged he was inspired by online jihadist videos to kill Americans.

Arid Uka, who grew up in Germany, was charged July 4 with two counts of murder and three counts of attempted murder in connection with the March 2 attack. If convicted, he faces a possible life sentence.

Authorities have said that Uka confessed shortly after his capture at the airport to wanting to kill American troops because of the U.S. involvement in Afghanistan.

According to the indictment, Uka was radicalized over time by jihadist propaganda he saw on the Internet, and the night before the act had watched a video that purported to show American atrocities in Afghanistan; it was actually a clip from a film. The investigation turned up no connections with any terrorist organization.

"He was a single person acting alone radicalized through jihadi Internet propaganda," prosecutors' spokesman Marcus Koehler told The Associated Press. "That shows, in the opinion of the federal prosecutors office, how dangerous jihadist propaganda on the Internet is."

Uka's attorney, Jens Joerg Hoffmann, said his client gave detailed statements to authorities and does not dispute the facts of the indictment.

No pleas are entered in Germany, meaning when the trial begins the prosecutors will still have to lay out the facts for the court. Hoffmann said the best Uka can hope for because of his cooperation is for the judges to allow for the possibility of an early release after he serves 15 years.

"There are ample hard facts, ample witnesses, ample everything – what's there to dispute?" he told the AP in a telephone interview from Frankfurt.

The video Uka saw the day before the crime, entitled "what was done to our sisters," was actually a short clip taken from the 2007 Brian De Palma anti-war film "Redacted," Hoffmann said.

According to the indictment, Uka went to the airport armed with a pistol, extra ammunition and two knives.

Inside Terminal 2, he spotted two U.S. servicemen who had just arrived on an afternoon flight and followed them to where a U.S. Air Force bus was waiting to pick them up.

After 16 servicemen, including the driver, were on or near the bus, Uka approached one of the men for a cigarette as a pretext to get closer, prosecutors said.

"After the person confirmed that these were members of the U.S. Air Force on their way to Afghanistan, the accused turned around, put the magazine that had been concealed in his backpack into his pistol, and cocked the weapon," the indictment read.

He first shot unarmed Senior Airman Nicholas J. Alden, a 25-year-old from South Carolina, in the back of the head, the indictment alleged. He then boarded the vehicle shouting "Allahu Akbar" – Arabic for "God is great" – and shot and killed the driver, 21-year-old Airman 1st Class Zachary R. Cuddeback of Vigrinia, before firing at others on board.

Arid Uka, Albanian Man, Charged In Frankfurt Airport Shooting

 

[daveman]

He should be extradited to the US for trial.

 

[High_Gravity]

He should be extradited to the US for trial.

Fuck after the Casey Anthony thing I don't know, he may walk if he gets tried here and be issued an apology.

 

[Blagger]

He should be extradited to the US for trial.

Er, why?

The crime was committed on German soil. It's down to them to prosecute the perpetrator, regardless of the victims' nationality.

 

[daveman]

He should be extradited to the US for trial.

Er, why?

The crime was committed on German soil. It's down to them to prosecute the perpetrator, regardless of the victims' nationality.

Yes, I know. But we have more skin in the game than the Germans.

 

[daveman]

He should be extradited to the US for trial.

Fuck after the Casey Anthony thing I don't know, he may walk if he gets tried here and be issued an apology.

Yeah, good point.

 

[L.K.Eder]

He should be extradited to the US for trial.

idjit

 

[High_Gravity]

Arid Uka, Frankfurt Airport Shooter, Sentenced To Life

FRANKFURT, Germany — An Islamic extremist who admitted killing two U.S. airmen bound for Afghanistan at Frankfurt airport last year was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison on Friday.

The state court in Frankfurt convicted 22-year-old Arid Uka of two counts of murder. It also found him guilty of three counts of attempted murder and serious bodily harm for wounding two other servicemen and taking aim at a third before his pistol jammed, German news agency dapd reported.

Uka, an ethnic Albanian from Kosovo, killed Senior Airman Nicholas J. Alden, 25, from South Carolina, and Airman 1st Class Zachary R. Cuddeback, 21, from Virginia in the March 2 attack on the Afghanistan-bound servicemen as they were boarding a bus at the airport.

The court found that Uka bears "particularly severe guilt," meaning he won't immediately be eligible for parole after 15 years as is usual in Germany.

Prosecutors said Uka was an example of a lone-wolf extremist who became radicalized on his own by reading and watching jihadist propaganda on the Internet. During the trial, they introduced as evidence dozens of files containing songs and written material pulled from his cell phone, music player and computer.

Uka, who worked as a temporary mail sorter at the airport, testified that he wanted to stop U.S. service personnel from going to Afghanistan after viewing a video on Facebook that purported to show American soldiers raping a teenage Muslim girl. It turned out to be a scene from the 2007 Brian De Palma anti-war film "Redacted," taken out of context.

Although Germany has experienced scores of terrorist attacks in past decades, largely from leftist groups like the Red Army Faction, the airport attack was the first attributed to an Islamic extremist.

Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, there have been about a half-dozen other jihadist plots that were either thwarted or failed – including a 2007 plan to kill Americans at the U.S. Air Force's Ramstein Air Base.

The airmen at Frankfurt airport were part of a security team traveling from an air base at Lakenheath in Britain.

As they loaded their bus in front of the airport, Uka approached Alden and asked for a cigarette, then asked if the group was headed for Afghanistan. Alden said it was. After he turned around, Uka pulled a pistol from his backpack and shot the unarmed Alden point blank in the back of the head.

He then boarded the bus and fatally shot Cuddeback, the driver, before turning the gun on two more airmen, Staff Sgt. Kristoffer Schneider and Edgar Veguilla. The weapon jammed as he pointed it at Staff Sgt. Trevor Brewer, who testified that Uka had "hate in his eyes" and said "Allahu akbar" – Arabic for "God is great."

Arid Uka, Frankfurt Airport Shooter, Sentenced To Life

 

[Katzndogz]

Didn't we learn our lesson with the Lockerbie Bomber? Being deceased means they won't get released later on.

 

[High_Gravity]

Didn't we learn our lesson with the Lockerbie Bomber? Being deceased means they won't get released later on.

Hmm good point, not much can be done though since Germany does not have the death penalty.

 

[daveman]

He should be extradited to the US for trial.

idjit

Looks like your hero is going to prison forever. You must have wept upon learning it.