A manifesto for murder in Munich
The Munich murders were not an act of random rage, but one which Ali David Sonboly had planned meticulously over a year by carrying out reconnaissance of a previous massacre, buying a gun from the dark net, and even writing a manifesto about what he intended do to.
New information emerging about the shooting spree, which claimed nine lives and left 35 others injured, differs from the portrait of a teenager who snapped after being bullied beyond endurance. Instead, it reveals a mind which appears to have been cold and calculating in executing a lethal plot.
Sonboly’s manifesto was written after he studied the writings of Anders Breivik, the neo-Nazi who massacred 77 people in Norway five years ago to the day on which the Munich slaughter took place. The German authorities refused to discuss the contents of Sonboly’s manifesto, either refusing to comment or saying that they had not had a chance to study it in detail because there is so much material on the dead killer’s computer.
However Robert Heimberger, Bavaria’s chief of criminal investigations, confirmed that Sonboly, an 18year-old German Iranian, had studied the actions of Breivik in his research into mass murders. He had also visited the town of Winnenden where, seven years ago, 17-year-old Tim Kretschmer killed nine of his fellow pupils, three teachers and a visitor at his school. Sonboly had taken photographs of Winnenden, which police discovered at his parents’ home, apparently to analyse what happened during the shooting.
Sonboly obtained the weapon he would use to carry out the murders, a Glock 17 pistol, and 300 rounds of ammunition from the underground illicit bazaar, the dark net. The gun, with a Czech proofmark, had at some stage been deactivated but was reactivated before being sold to the student in Munich.
Joachim Herrmann, the Bavarian interior minister, thought the pistol probably cost “several hundred euros”, and people in the gun trade estimated that, along with the ammunition, it was more likely to have cost around a thousand euros. Neither the minister nor other officials could say how Sonboly got access to the dark net or had the funds needed for the purchase.
Sonboly could have been saving up money from his paper round, his only known source of income. He had been putting other parts of his plans in place – setting up, for instance, a fake Facebook page he would use to entice young people to a branch of McDonald’s with the offer “I will give you something if you want, but not too expensive” last Friday, before emerging from his hiding place to start shooting them.
Thomas Steinkraus-Koch, from the office of Munich’s public prosecutor, said that the general nature of the invitation meant that there was no evidence that Sonboly knew any of his victims. However, students from his school often went to that branch of the fast food restaurant. A group of them claimed that Sonboly had been bullied by a gang led by a Turkish youth, and had vowed revenge.
Sonboly’s father, a taxi driver, had contacted the police after seeing his son on videos filmed during the shooting. However, whether he or his wife, who works in a department store, or another son they have, had suspected what Ali David was up to is unknown for the time being. They remain too upset, 48 hours after the murders, to be interviewed.
One of the videos which Sonboly’s father saw showed an extraordinary row between his son and a man on a balcony, during which Ali David declares a number of times that he was a German before he lets fly a shot towards the man.
Today that man, Thomas Salbey, said after hearing about Sonboly’s purchase of the pistol on the dark net: “How did he manage that? Anyway, he was very lucky that he had the gun and not me. All I had was a beer bottle to throw at him. If I had a gun, I would have shot him and saved a few innocent lives.”