A SUFFOLK based airman, murdered in Germany, has today been named.

Two members of the US Air Force were shot as they arrived at a German airport on Wednesday.

The victims have today been named as 25-year-old Senior Airman Nicholas Alden of South Carolina, and Airman 1st Class Zachary Cuddeback of Virginia.

German authorities said a 21-year-old temporary letter sorter had admitted targeting Americans when he opened fire with a handgun on a bus +load of Lakenheath airmen at Frankfurt International Airport on Wednesday, killing two and wounding two others.

The airmen were on their way to deployment in Afghanistan

Senior Airman Alden was assigned to the 48th Security Forces Squadron at RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk and Airman Cuddeback, who was driving the bus, was with the 86th Vehicle Readiness Squadron at Ramstein Air Base in Germany.

Meanwhile it emerged that the suspect, Arid Uka, grew up in a well-kept immigrant neighbourhood in Frankfurt as the son of a relatively prosperous, but not particularly religious family of ethnic Albanians from Kosovo - a group notable more for their pro-American outlook than mosque attendance.

A judge in Karlsruhe on Thursday ordered Uka to be held in prison on two counts of murder and three counts of attempted murder.

German investigators said the indications were that Uka turned only recently to extremism. They said that he had contact with other radicals through social networking sites and elsewhere, but it appears he was not part of a terrorist organisation.