A deputy leader of the nationalist Alternative for Germany party apologized yesterday for falsely blaming a fatal van attack in Muenster on Islamic extremists, saying that she leapt to conclusions too quickly.
Beatrix von Storch said on her Facebook page that “I made a mistake with my tweet about Muenster and I’m sorry.” She added that she should have waited “until the facts were clear.”
“Like millions of Germans I assumed that it was an Islamic attack.”
The apology came after widespread criticism, including from within her own party, of her tweet suggesting Chancellor Angela Merkel’s open-door refugee policy was to blame after a man drove into a crowd Saturday.
Two people were killed many more injured.
When authorities revealed the van’s driver to be a German with no known extremist links, von Storch initially doubled down, tweeting that the suspect was an “imitator of Islamist terror.”
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