Kosovo man admits to killing U.S. airmen in Frankfurt airport attack
A Kosovo man admitted in a German court Wednesday that he shot dead two U.S. airmen at Frankfurt airport.
Arid Uka, 21, a Kosovo Albanian who grew up in Germany, said he regrets shooting the airmen and doesn't understand why he did it, the BBC reports.
"What I did was wrong, but I cannot undo what I did," Uka told a Frankfurt court at the opening of his trial.
He said he had been influenced by a jihadist propaganda video on the internet that purported to show U.S. servicemen raping a Muslim girl in Iraq.
The video was actually a scene from director Brian De Palma's anti-war film, "Redacted."
More from GlobalPost: Arid Uka, Frankfurt airport suspect, goes on trial
"I thought what I saw in that video, these people would do in Afghanistan," Uka told the court, according to the BBC.
"I killed two people and opened fire on three others …Today I can't understand myself how I could have acted this way."
Senior Airman Nicholas J. Alden, 25, from South Carolina, and Airman 1st Class Zachary R. Cuddeback, 21, from Virginia were killed in the Frankfurt airport attack, the Associated Press says.
Two other US airmen were seriously injured in the March 2 attack on an air force bus. Uka had followed the airmen from an airport terminal to their military bus.
Prosecutors believe he acted alone in carrying out what has been described as the first deadly attack attributed to an Islamist on German soil, and said Uka had no contact with Islamist groups.
Uka is charged with two counts of murder, and three counts of attempted murder. If the court accepts his confession, he is likely to be sentenced to 15 years in prison.
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