THE YOUTH WHO SHOT AND KILLED 9 PEOPLE AT A MUNICH MALL PLANNED THE ATTACK FOR AT LEAST A YEAR, ACCORDING TO MATERIALS FOUND IN HIS ROOM. ALI DAVID SONBOLY ALSO RECEIVED PSYCHIATRIC TREATMENT.
Gunman had obsession with mass shootings
‘AN OBVIOUS LINK’
MUNICH • German police said Sunday the teenage gunman who went on a rampage at a shopping centre Friday, killing nine people, had no ties to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant or other extremist groups, but had been planning his attack for a year and may have been inspired by a similar assault by another German youth in 2009.
At a news conference, German authorities said evidence continued to support their theory the gunman was “obsessed” with mass killings and may have been a depressed loner who was bullied in school.
Robert Heimberger, head of the Bavarian criminal police, said the Munich gunman had last year visited the German town of Winnenden, the scene of a similar shooting rampage in 2009 by a 17-year-old who killed 15 students and teachers at his former school.
The Munich shooter took photographs at the site.
German police also said it was likely the pistol used in the Munich attack was purchased via the “darknet,” a corner of the Internet where users employ encryption and special software to trade restricted items, pornography, ideas, files and whistle-blowing alerts to circumvent government snooping.
Investigators searching the apartment where the assailant — named as Ali David Sonboly, 18, by German media — lived with his family found a trove of electronic data and writ- ten materials suggesting he was fascinated by shooting rampages. These included a book, translated into German, by a U.S. academic on school shootings, titled Why Kids Kill: Inside the Minds of School Shooters.
“He was very intensely interested in the subject,” said Hubertus Andrae, the Munich police chief, who described the mass shooting as a “classic act by a deranged person.”
Sonboly’s parents, a limousine driver and a department store clerk, emigrated from Iran to Germany. The German-Iranian teen may have been the target of intense bullying by peers, police said. In a video taken during the rampage, Sonboly complains of being bullied.
Instead of being inspired by ISIL terrorism, investigators believe Sonboly may have been influenced by the Norwegian mass murderer and neo-fascist, Anders Behring Breivik.
Munich authorities said there was “an obvious link” between Sonboly’s actions and the massacre carried out by Breivik on July 22, 2011.
The Munich killings — the third mass attack in Europe since the Bastille Day truck carnage in Nice, France, this month — took place on the fifth anniversary of Breivik’s attacks in Oslo and the island of Utoya. At the time, Breivik released a statement calling for the deportation of Muslims, whom he decried as enemies alongside “cultural Marxists.”
A German security official said Sonboly was not known to police but he admired the teen who killed 15 people in Winnenden.
A security officer said during the shootings he “behaved like he was in a video game” and was “cold and methodical.” He targeted “foreign-looking people” and aimed at their heads. In one case, he may have returned to a wounded victim and shot him again.
In front of the shuttered Olympia shopping mall, where the rampage took place, mourners left flowers and lit candles under rainy skies. Church bells tolled throughout the day, and flags flew at half-staff.
Stefan Dessner, a retiree, placed a bouquet on the sidewalk.
“This was a terrible day,” he said, wondering whether the world was “going crazy,” and mentioning the victims’ youth. Most were younger than 18, including three 14-year-olds; most had been born to parents with migrant backgrounds.
German Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière said Sonboly’s motives were still being investigated, but there were no links to international terrorist groups.
Officials said they have found no suicide note or other statement of intent.
Sonboly did not have a criminal record but “may have had a mental disorder,” said Thomas SteinkrausKoch, Munich’s prosecutor.
“We are talking about a perpetrator without any political background.”
The killer was armed with a Glock semi-automatic pistol that had its serial number scratched out, suggesting that it had been obtained illegally. He had about 300 rounds of ammunition and still had multiple cartridges in a bag when he shot himself in the head, ending the slaughter hours after it began.
Meanwhile, in the southwestern city of Reutlingen on Sunday, a Syrian man with a machete killed a woman and injured two others, before being arrested.