The 2020 Hanau Attack

The victims

The nine people murdered in the attack were Ferhat Unvar, Mercedes Kierpacz, Sedat Gürbüz, Gökhan Gültekin, Hamza Kurtović, Kaloyan Velkov, Vili Viorel Păun, Fatih Saraçoğlu and Said Nesar Hashemi. At least five other people were injured.

Hessian authorities classified the attack as racist and xenophobic. The perpetrator's own writings and videos were among the evidence considered by investigators when assessing motive.

The attack and immediate investigation

On the evening of 19 February 2020, the attacker opened fire at locations in Hanau associated with bars and cafés. Later that night, police found the suspected attacker and his mother dead at the residence they shared. The federal prosecutor took over the investigation on 20 February and tasked the Federal Criminal Police Office with examining the attack, the perpetrator's background and whether other people had participated or knowingly assisted.

Because the perpetrator died, there was no criminal trial in which his responsibility could be tested in the ordinary adversarial process. Crime by Region therefore uses the formulation perpetrator identified rather than implying a conviction that never occurred.

Federal finding on possible accomplices

On 16 December 2021, the Federal Prosecutor's Office closed the investigation against unknown possible participants under section 170(2) of the German Code of Criminal Procedure. After pursuing the relevant investigative leads, prosecutors said they had found no sufficient factual indications that other people acted as co-perpetrators, instigators, helpers or advance confidants.

The same announcement said the available evidence did not establish criminally relevant participation or advance knowledge by the perpetrator's father. That conclusion concerns criminal liability; it does not resolve every broader question raised by survivors and relatives about public-safety systems or the response on the night.

Later accountability proceedings

Questions about emergency calls, weapons licensing and an allegedly locked emergency exit remained subjects of public and parliamentary scrutiny. In October 2025, the Frankfurt Higher Regional Court rejected as inadmissible applications by relatives seeking to compel prosecutions against venue operators and unnamed public officials in connection with alleged failures surrounding the attack.

That ruling did not erase the institutional questions raised by families. It means only that the specific applications to force criminal prosecution did not succeed.

Timeline