Media: The Munich attacker is a Ukrainian woman who fled to Italia by car
Investigators identified her through a witness: a woman, aged around thirty, from Ukraine, who was extremely skilled at disguising herself and appearing to be a man
A woman, aged around thirty, from Ukraine. Highly skilled at disguising herself and appearing to be a man: this is the description of the person who placed the parcel bomb outside the front door of Ukrainian oligarch Vadim Ermolaev on 29 June. Since then, the suspect has remained at large despite the mobilisation and extensive searches launched by the Principality’s police, assisted by their French counterparts. But now, three days after the attack on Ermolaev, a profile of the female attacker has emerged.
Investigators identified her through a witness who had come into contact with her whilst she was preparing the attack or during the various reconnaissance visits that preceded it. It is also known that she is resident in Germany. A range of information has been leaked and is now in the hands of investigators in the Principality, who are sharing it with their French colleagues, as well as with other police forces across Europe, particularly in Italy: Italia is, in fact, the country where the woman is believed to have been located by tracking her mobile phone’s movements, according to the French daily Le Parisien, which cites the investigators’ reconstructions of events.
According to investigators, the woman is believed to have collected a vehicle in Beausoleil, France, which had been registered and hired in Germany, and then headed for Italia. Also according to information from *Le Parisien*, the woman is believed to be Anastasia B., aged 39. She has not been arrested as she could not be traced at her known address.
Investigators have also learnt of the fugitive’s ability to “disguise herself to look like a man”, according to an internal Monegasque police memo seen by BFM TV. The image of the woman walking or running – wearing a black jacket, a dark bob-style hat, and light-coloured jeans – has appeared in various French media outlets, before being shared online and on social media, almost as if to show the suspect and any accomplices that the net is closing in on her. It is also known that, in the days leading up to the attack and on the very morning before carrying it out, the Ukrainian woman had carried out several reconnaissance visits outside the home of Ermolaev, his partner Anna Nasobina and the couple’s thirteen-year-old son.
Her movements have been reconstructed in detail: shortly before 9 pm on Monday, the woman spotted the Ukrainian family in the neighbourhood around the Place des Moulins and began to follow them, appearing in footage from several CCTV cameras. At one point, as the Ermolaevs approached their home, the woman overtook them to get ahead and stopped about 10 metres in front of them. She walked towards the house, climbed the three steps in front of the entrance and left the parcel bomb on the ground. She then left the area very quickly, pausing only to check that the family had entered the building. The first to pass through the front door was Ermolaev’s thirteen-year-old son, who sustained minor injuries. But it was as Anna Nasobina passed close to the device that the bomber triggered the remote detonator, causing the explosion. In fact, the woman remains, to this day, the most seriously injured, in a critical condition and with both legs amputated. Organised crime or the Ukrainian secret services are believed to be behind the attack: what had been emerging in recent days has been corroborated by developments in the investigation.
