Halle's shooter was a bitter loner and obsessed with the internet

A single child who has dropped out of school, still living with her mother and spending most of her time in front of a computer: the author of Halle's anti-Semitic attack appears as an ultra-radicalized loner.

"He was still online," his father told Bild newspaper on Thursday, adding that he had few friends and spent long hours in front of the computer.

Born in Eisleben in Saxony-Anhalt, about 40 kilometers from the scene of the assault, the German media identifies as Stephan Balliet was still living at his mother's house since the divorce of his parents when he was 14 years old.

After obtaining his baccalaureate, the young man started chemistry studies that he had to abandon after a stomach operation.

According to a neighbor interviewed by Bild, he later worked as a radio technician.

His father, whom he visited regularly, describes him as a lonely and withdrawn person: "He was not at peace with himself or with the world, he always blamed others".

"We quarreled again and again, my opinion did not matter. I could not reach it anymore, "he explains.

As the Australian responsible in March for attacks against two mosques in New Zealand, which left 51 dead, Stephan Balliet has filmed and broadcast live on an internet platform its actions. In his 35-minute video, he gives vent to his hatred of Jews, migrants and feminists.

Wearing a military jacket and a helmet surmounted by a camera, he is seen failing to enter the city's synagogue, whose doors are closed twice. Frustrated, he kills two people at random: a passerby near the synagogue, which he calls "pig", then a house painter later in a Turkish restaurant.

In his video, this shaven-headed man insults himself against his plan that does not go as planned. He calls himself an "incompetent loser" and adds, "I am here and then I die, the loser I am."

Stephan Balliet seems to be radicalized especially online. In his video, he expresses his hatred of Jews, saying "that the Holocaust never existed" or that the "root of all problems is the Jew."

Until now, he was not known to the police and the authorities did not consider him a right-wing extremist, according to the German press.

Officially, he did not hold any weapons. In his video, he claims to have made his own weapons but, while his homemade rifle works poorly, he apologizes to his subscribers several times.

He repeatedly addresses the "guys" who are supposed to see his video live, as if he belonged to a large community. However, the film was only seen live by 5 people, according to the platform concerned, Twitch.

Following the example of the Norwegian Anders Behring Breivik, the right-wing extremist responsible for the death of 77 people in a bomb attack in 2011 in his country, Stephan Balliet also published online a "manifesto" of ten pages in which he expresses in particular his hatred of the Jews.

This choice "clearly shows that he was not trying to impress local neo-Nazis, but his + public + was on forums" online, says Peter Neumann, terrorism expert at King's College London.