Munich gunman ‘obsessed’ with mass killings
MUNICH: The teenager who shot dead nine people in a gun rampage in Munich was “obsessed” with mass killers such as Norwegian rightwing fanatic Anders Behring Breivik and had no links to the Islamic State group, police said.
Europe reacted in shock to the third attack on the continent in just over a week, after 18-year-old David Ali Sonboly went on a shooting spree at a shopping centre on Friday evening before turning the gun on himself.
Officials said Sonboly, a GermanIranian student, had a history of mental illness.
“There is absolutely no link to the Islamic State,” Munich police chief Hubertus Andrae said yesterday, describing the assault as a “classic act by a deranged person”.
Investigators see an “obvious link” between Friday’s killings and Breivik’s massacre of 77 people in Norway exactly five years earlier, Andrae added.
Chancellor Angela Merkel, in her first reaction to the carnage, said Munich had suffered a “night of horror”.
Most of the victims in Friday’s attack were foreigners, including three Turkish nationals, three people from Kosovo and a Greek man.
Most of the casualties were young people aged 15 to 21, with three women among the dead according to Munich police.
Prosecutor Thomas SteinkrausKoch said Sonboly had suffered depression, while media reports said he had undergone psychiatric treatment. The teenager had 300 rounds of ammunition in a rucksack when he targeted the busy Olympia shopping mall, just minutes away from the flat he shared with his family, according to authorities
Grieving Munich residents laid roses and lit candles in memory of the victims, with one placard bearing the simple plea: “Why?“
“Bloodbath in Munich,” was the headline on the best-selling Bild newspaper as Germany struggled to come to terms with the killings.
Sixteen people were wounded in the attack, three of them critically.
Merkel was to convene her security council yesterday.
The attack sent Germany’s third largest city into lockdown as police launched a massive operation to track down what had initially been thought to be up to three assailants.
Neighbours said Sonboly was born to Iranian parents, a taxi driver father and a mother who worked at a department store.
They lived in the well-heeled Maxvorstadt neighbourhood in a tidy social housing block popular with immigrant families.
Neighbour Delfye Dalbi, 40, described him as a helpful young man who was “never bitter or angry”, though others remembered a quiet loner.
A police source cited by DPA news agency said Sonboly loved playing violent video games and was an admirer of the 17-year-old German who shot dead 15 people at his school near Stuttgart in 2009.
Survivors described terrifying scenes as shoppers rushed from the area, some carrying children in their arms.
Another video appeared to show the gunman on a car park roof in a heated exchange with a man on a nearby balcony.
“I’m German, I was born here,” the assailant replied after the man fired off a volley of swear words, including an insulting term for foreigners.
Munich’s main train station was evacuated and metro and bus transport suspended for several hours while residents were ordered to stay inside, leaving the streets largely deserted. — AFP