An employee of a publicly funded migration NGO is alleged to have driven both the suspected killer to the scene of Monday’s mass shooting in the northern German town of Stade and the getaway car used after the attack.
According to German news outlet NIUS, Sylvia S. was behind the wheel of a Mercedes-Benz GLE Coupé when 45-year-old Fatih Khan G. fled the scene after allegedly shooting dead six employees at a youth welfare facility. The outlet also reported that she drove him to the centre shortly before the attack.
Prosecutors accuse Fatih Khan G., a German-born man of Turkish descent, of opening fire during a scheduled child welfare meeting at the residential facility where his three-month-old child and the child’s mother had been living, killing six staff members.
Sylvia S., 65, was detained for questioning after the shooting but was later released. German authorities have not announced any charges against her.
The shooting followed a long-running custody dispute. Earlier this year, the couple’s infant was admitted to hospital after doctors suspected abusive head trauma. The father became the subject of a criminal investigation, and the local youth welfare office took the child into protective care.
A family court later ruled that the baby could return to the mother, but only at the supervised mother-and-child facility in Stade rather than at the family’s previous home. According to NIUS, Sylvia S., who has described herself as the child’s godmother, drove the father to a care planning meeting at the facility on the day of the attack.
According to NIUS and the Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung, Sylvia S. had publicly defended the father before the shooting. Three days earlier, she reportedly sent a 20-page letter to several media organisations claiming the infant’s injuries resulted from an accidental collision while the father was half asleep, rather than deliberate abuse. The child’s parents have consistently denied any mistreatment.
NIUS also reported that the migration organisation employing Sylvia S. received almost €900,000 in federal funding during 2025 and 2026 through Germany’s Demokratie leben! programme, which finances projects promoting democracy and combating extremism and discrimination.
Reacting to the reports, AfD MP Tobias Teich claimed Sylvia S. may have helped the suspect out of “ideological blindness.”
Police have not alleged that Sylvia S. knew in advance about the shooting or shared responsibility for the killings, and authorities have not publicly explained why she was released without charge.
