LEIPZIG: A man suspected of ploughing a car into a crowd in the German city of Leipzig, killing two people, was ordered into a psychiatric hospital by a judge on Tuesday.

The judge found “compelling reasons” to believe that the 33-year-old suspect carried out the attack “in a state of at least significantly diminished responsibility”, prosecutors in Leipzig said in a statement.

The German national allegedly drove the vehicle on Monday at high speed down a main street in the historic centre of the eastern city, leaving two people dead and several others wounded.

Germany has been shaken by a series of car-ramming attacks in recent years, including one targeting a Christmas market in 2024 in Magdeburg, and others in Berlin and Munich.

The suspect in Leipzig was treated in a specialist psychiatric hospital from April 17 to 29, “due to his mental condition and with his consent”, police and prosecutors revealed on Tuesday. Authorities said they do not believe that the suspect, who was arrested at the scene, had any political or religious motive for the act — but believe the car ramming was deliberate.

Published in Dawn, May 6th, 2026