The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Gunman spent year planning rampage
German investigators arrest 16-year-old boy over possible role in Munich shooting
The teenager behind the deadly shooting rampage at a Munich shopping centre had planned his attack for a year and chose his victims at random, investigators said.
Bavarian investigator Robert Heimberger said the gunman, an 18-year-old German-Iranian identified only as David S but named in media reports as Ali Sonboly, visited the site of a previous school shooting in the German town of Winnenden and took photographs last year. He then set about planning the attack in which he killed nine and wounded 27 others – 10 critically – before taking his own life.
Meanwhile, police in Munich have announced the arrest of a 16-year-old Afghan friend of the attacker.
They say he is under investigation for not reporting Sonboly’s plans.
In a statement, they say he may have played a role in the Facebook post inviting people to meet at the fast food restaurant where the shooting began.
Mr Heimberger told reporters that Sonboly’s brother and parents were not emotionally up to being interrogated.
There is so far no evidence that he knew any of his victims, or that there was any political motivation behind the attack, said Thomas Steinkraus-Koch of the Munich prosecutors’ office.
The suspect received inpatient and outpatient psychiatric treatment last year to help deal with “fears of contact with others,” Mr Steinkraus-Koch added.
Bavaria’s top security official has now urged a constitutional change to allow the country’ s military to be able to be deployed in support of police during attacks.
Due to the excesses of the Nazi era, Germany’s post-war constitution only allows the military to be deployed in cases of national emergency.
Weapons are strictly controlled in Germany and police are still trying to determine how the gunman obtained the Glock 17 used in the attack but Mr Heimberger said it appears “very likely” the suspect purchased the weapon online.