Arid Uka

Arid Uka, born 8 February 1990 in Mitrovicë, Kosovo) is a Muslim Kosovo Albanian from Frankfurt am Main, Hesse, Germany. On 2 March 2011 he committed an assassination attempt at Frankfurt Airport. He murdered two US soldiers and injured two others severely. This incident is considered as first accomplished assassination attempt in Germany with an islamist background.

Assassination

Shouting Allahu akbar („God is great“) Uka fired with a pistol on unarmed US soldiers and the driver of a bus of the military services who waited at a terminal of Frankfurt Airport. The bus was meant as a shuttle service for US soldiers who were just landed. The soldiers were formerly stationed at Lakenheath Airbase in UK and should have been forwarded to Ramstein Air Base in Rhineland-Palatinate.

The first soldiers had already boarded the bus, others still waited to do so. Uka first shot a soldier of US Air Force aside the bus then the bus driver behind the steering wheel. Uka entered the bus and aimed on sitting and hiding soldiers who were not able to flee. He shot on heads and bodies of two soldiers who were severely wounded. Then his pistol had a jam so he was not able to shoot on a fifth person who tried to cover himself between seat rows. Uka left the bus and tried to flee through the terminal to hide in the crowd of people. Two persons, his proposed fifth target in the bus, Sergeant Trevor Brewer, and a security person of US origin, Lamar Connor, followed him. Inside the terminal German Bundespolizei was able to catch the assassin. Brewer and Connor later were honoured with the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany.

Catalyst

Due to the giving of evidence of Arid Uka, the catalyst for the decision to attempt an assassination of US soldiers was a video-clip of Youtube which showed a rape of Muslim women by US soldiers. German investigations and the trial found that this video-clip was fiction, part of an US-American movie. Uka took it as reality.

In the web Arid Uka (alias name "Abu Reyyan" = Guard of heaven's gate) used several relevant islamist forums where he participated with postings. He claimed that through the content and the discussions in these forums he came to the belief that his muslim fellows were in global war with the United States.

Contacts

Via the web Uka had contacts to Sheik Abdellatif of the so-called Da'wa group, who preached in two mosques in Frankfurt. The Salafi mosque of these two is considered as a meeting-point of Islamists. Several well-known Islamists have been seen there.

Trial

The defendant's lawyer described Uka as a non-typical violent criminal who is neither religiously motivated nor an islamist terrorist. The Attorney General of Germany ranks Arid Uka as a single perpetrator. It was applied for a sentence of life plus a finding of "exceptional gravity of guilt". In Germany, a prisoner sentenced to life imprisonment (lebenslange Freiheitsstrafe) can normally apply for parole after having served 15 years. If the parole court rejects the request the inmate can reapply after two years (§ 57 IV StGB). If the court has determined a "severe gravity of guilt" exists (besondere Schwere der Schuld), the case is not reviewed by the parole court after 15 years. It determines in light of the severe gravity of guilt and the development of the prisoner if and how many additional years the inmate has to serve before he is eligible to apply for early release. There is no legal limit on the term the parole court can hand down. However usually it is 4–5 years. The average time a prisoner has to serve after he was sentenced to life imprisonment with the determination of the exceptional gravity of guilt is 23 to 25 years in prison. The Hessian High Court (Oberlandesgericht Frankfurt am Main) decided on 10 February 2012 to act on the applications filed by the Attorney General of Germany. Uka was sentenced to life imprisonment with the determination of an "exceptional gravity of guilt" . After his term Uka is mandatory to be extradited to Kosovo since he does not hold a German citizenship and he was sentenced to a fine of more then 3 years in prison in Germany.

Private Background

Since 1991 Arid Uka lives in Germany, whereas his family has settled in this country since four decades. His Kosovan grandfather is an Imam whereas his parents and his two brothers are considered to have a secular life-style. It is told that Uka prays five times a day. When he was working for Deutsche Post at Frankfurt Airport he was prompted not to pray during working-time. For his mother, who doesn't wear a cover, he gave half of his earnings to save money for her pilgrimage to Mecca.

When he was six or seven years old he was sexually abused, according to the hearing of the expert during the trial. This may have been triggered the fact that Uka took the fictional video-clip of a rape-scene as a catalyst of his assassination attempt.

During the trial he was described as a pupil with good achievement in school, but frequent absences due to psychological problems. In 2005 his class was invited to the German Chancellery in Berlin as they won a prize for a school project about violence prevention in society. On the occasion a photo was made which shows Uka next to German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder.

Uka left school before his university-entrance diploma but didn't tell his family. Instead he told them he had finished the diploma successfully. His family members, former friends and one of his employers described him as introverted, polite and as not aggressive. Months before the assassination attempt he broke ties to all his friends and retreated. During this time he was extensively surfing the web visiting websites with Jihadist content.

Audio on Demand

• Ich wollte mich rächen. In: Hessischer Rundfunk, 10. Februar 2012 (3:00 Min.) auf: hr-online.de (in German)

Video on Demand

• Der Fall Arid Uka. In: Westdeutscher Rundfunk, Cosmo, 15. Januar 2012 (7:14 Min.) auf: wdr.de (in German)
• Arid U. – Unbemerkte Radikalisierung. Im: ZDF, 10. Februar 2012 (2:56 Min.) auf: zdf.de (in German)