Facebook trap of the McDonald’s murderer
Munich killer who was bullied at school sent messages to teenagers before shooting spree
THE teenager who shot and killed nine people in the Munich massacre used Facebook to lure his victims to a McDonald’s, police said yesterday.
Ali David Sonboly, 18, launched his killing spree in the Bavarian city in an apparent revenge attack for being bullied. It is now thought he targeted youngsters of “Turkish and Arab” origin, having claimed those groups had picked on him in school.
Sonboly, who killed himself at the end of the attack, had set up a fake Facebook account using the identity of a pretty teenage girl.
Using the name “Selina Akim”, Sonboly posted a message hours before the attack saying: “Come today at four o’clock to McDonald’s at OEZ [shopping centre]. I am giving away anything you want as long as it’s not too expensive.”
It is not clear who fell for the ruse and beforehand one acquaintance had warned young people to stay clear.
“This here is a fake account of one Ali Sonboly. Don’t get your hopes up,” wrote Lukas Dore, adding: “The boy is psychologically disturbed and only wants attention.”
Among those he murdered were a group of four children – aged 14 and 15 – who were mown down at the table where they were eating.
The teenage friends comprised two boys of Turkish origin and two girls from Kosovan families, bolstering the theory that Sonboly chose his victims as he rampaged through McDonald’s and into a busy shopping centre. In all, seven of his victims were teenagers and the oldest was a 45-year-old mother of two of Turkish descent.
Police said the killings were not terrorist-related. They added that Sonboly was armed with an unlicensed Glock 9mm pistol and had 300 rounds of ammunition in his backpack.
Angela Merkel, the chancellor, said her nation “mourned with a heavy heart”, adding: “A night like this is difficult for us all to bear.”
Following the attacks security was tightened at Dover yesterday, causing lengthy queues in the heat as the school holidays began.
Prosecutors said Sonboly was suffering from mental illness and had received psychiatric treatment in the months leading up to the killings.
In a raid on his family apartment in an affluent suburb of Munich, police discovered extremist material linked to mass shootings, including the attack by Anders Behring Breivik, the white supremacist who murdered 77 people in Norway in 2011.
The massacre in Munich took place on the fifth anniversary of the Norway attacks and Sonboly had recently changed a profile picture on an online messaging service to one of Breivik.
Sonboly also had documents relating to a gun attack on a school in Bavaria in 2009 in which 16 teenagers were killed as well as a book called Why Kids Kill: Inside The Minds of School Shooters.
On the day of the attack, according to the newspaper Bild, Sonboly told associates via a computer game message: “Come to the McDonald’s and I will come and get you and shoot you.”
At the time they dismissed it as “hot air” as similar threats had been made before. A teenage girl who lived in the same apartment block said he had told classmates: “I will kill you all.”
Four of the teenagers, all friends, killed by Sonboly were named last night as Can Leyla, 14, and his friend Selcuk Kilic, 15, both of Turkish origin, and two girls: Sabina Sulaj and Armela Segashi, both 14. A fifth member of the group was critically injured.
Dilan Demir described the scene on Facebook: “I was close to the scene and was hiding with a friend. When it was very quiet we got up and saw five people. They looked dead, one of them was him [Selcuk]. He lay with his head on the table. His two other friends, and two girls, lay on the floor.”
Sonboly was filmed shooting dead some of his victims outside the McDonald’s including Sevda Dag, the oldest to die. He then crossed into the shopping centre and carried on shooting.
Further footage emerged of him on the shopping centre’s rooftop car park, shouting “I am German” after bystanders challenged him.
One of the men was identified as Thomas Salbey, 57, who was sitting on the balcony of his tower block flat.
He said: “I was drinking a beer after work when I heard the shots, first at McDonald’s. Bam bam bam – that’s how it sounded. Then I looked down from the balcony and saw him running along. As he reloaded his gun I got my beer bottle and threw it at him.”
NOTHING appeared untoward about Selina Akim’s Facebook posting. “Come today at four o’clock to McDonald’s at OEZ [Olympia shopping centre]. I am giving away anything you want as long as it’s not too expensive,” it read in German. The photograph of Selina Akim showed a pretty girl with long dark hair and a winning smile. The posting might have sounded odd but appeared innocent enough. It was anything but.
Investigators are working on the theory that Selina Akim had had her Facebook page hacked by Ali David Sonboly, the German teenager of Iranian descent responsible for the Munich massacre that would take place just a few hours later.
Or possibly Sonboly, 18, had set up a false account, using the girl’s picture, some time ago with a plan to attract Facebook friends, and then wipe them out. Certainly, the message appears to have been a sinister attempt to lure victims to their deaths.
Sonboly, using Akim’s account, also sent direct messages to friends, insisting: “Everyone should come.” It’s not known at this stage who, if any, of the friends fell for the trap. One young man, Lukas Dore, posted, in the run-up to the shootings: “This here is a fake account of one Ali Sonboly. Don’t get your hopes up.” Lukas – under the username Lukas Re – added for those in any doubt: “The boy is psychologically disturbed and only wants attention. Anybody who goes there will be able to confirm it’s not Selina.”
Lukas would, of course, be proved right. On Facebook, he posted in the aftermath of the attack: “The police have been contacted. I know who is behind it.” But on Friday lunchtime when the message appeared, he could have had no idea of Sonboly’s deadly intent.
By 4pm on Friday – the time for Akim’s fake assignation – the McDonald’s restaurant opposite the Olympia shopping centre and about 20 minutes by underground from Sonboly’s home, was full of teenagers and families.
There was nothing untoward and at some point Sonboly – dressed in black and carrying a bright red backpack with a Japanese Pokémon character emblazoned on it – wandered in.
Nobody seems to have noticed him and it is unclear if anybody fell for his Facebook trap. It is possible Sonboly would spend the next 90 minutes or so brooding inside the restaurant wondering if anybody would show up.
At about 5.45pm, Sonboly went to the lavatory and, according to an eightyear-old witness, loaded a 9mm Glock pistol. He had at least 300 rounds of ammunition in his backpack.
A woman, who gave her name as Loretta, said her son watched Sonboly calmly load the weapon. “I come out of the toilet too and I hear like an alarm – boom, boom, boom. He’s killing the children. The children were sitting to eat. They can’t run,” she said.
Loretta also claimed that as he did so Sonboly shouted: “Allahu akbar”, a cry heard when Isil-style terrorist attacks are under way. Nobody else seems to back up the claim and she may have misheard it in the confusion. At 5.50pm, police received the first reports of multiple gunmen on the rampage, carrying “long rifles”. The reality was a single killer with a handgun.
Sonboly would kill nine people, seven of them teenagers, and injure 27. Of the nine dead, three were originally from Kosovo and three from Turkey, reflecting the multi-ethnic area he chose for his shooting spree. Four teenage friends, aged 14 and 15, thought to be on a shopping trip, were among those he executed, possibly inside the McDonald’s. A fifth friend is thought to have been seriously wounded.
Sonboly appears to have targeted victims according to their ethnicity. He had complained he had been bullied at school by gangs of “Turks and Arabs”, according to former classmates.
From the restaurant, Sonboly burst through its front doors and into Hanauer Street, a busy four-lane highway that separates McDonald’s from the Olympia shopping centre.
Extraordinary video footage, taken by a passer-by, shows the gunman taking aim on the street. Sonboly lifts his handgun, firing in excess of 20 shots at a group of five people. The shots can be heard ringing out in rapid succession. His oldest victim, a mother of two, is thought to have perished there.
The video footage, posted on Facebook by Felix Urbauer, is shaky and the camera phone’s holder runs for his life.
From the restaurant, Sonboly crossed the road and walked through the northern entrance of the shopping centre, according to police.
Shoppers and workers dived for cover. A shopworker, hiding in a store cupboard, told a news agency by phone during the attack: “All the people from outside came streaming into the store and I only saw one person on the ground who was so severely injured that he definitely didn’t survive.”
Another shopworker, Lynn Stein, said: “People started running. I went outside. I think I heard more shots. Then it sounded like he went to the car park next to the mall – several shots there. I saw somebody lying on the floor, presumably dead.”
Police flooded the area close to the Olympic village, where in 1972 11 Israeli athletes were killed by Palestinian terrorists. Convinced they were dealing with an Isil-style attack with multiple terrorists, authorities effectively shut down the city. The underground and bus routes were stopped and mainline stations evacuated. Taxi drivers were told by text messages not to pick up passengers. Even passengers at Munich airport were held in limbo.
Through it all Sonboly kept going. He walked through the shopping centre, built in 1972, firing all the time before ending up on the centre’s rooftop car park at Ries Street. He got into a bizarre shouting match with at least one onlooker in a tower block above him.
Video footage captures an exchange between the killer and the onlooker. The dialogue is filled with expletives. It gives an astonishing insight into Sonboly’s motives. In the exchange, Sonboly claims he was bullied at school, suggesting his motive for the assault.
Heavy equipment operator Thomas Salbey, 57, was the man on his balcony overlooking the car park. “I was drinking a beer after work when I heard the shots, first at McDonald’s. Bam bam bam – that’s how it sounded,” he told
Bild newspaper. “At first I thought it was a Kalashnikov he was firing. Then I looked down and saw him running along the glass tunnel. “As he reloaded his gun I got my beer bottle and threw it at him. It broke on the glass, but I don’t think he heard it.”
Mr Salbey is first heard screaming at Sonboly: “You f------ a------ you ...” The gunman responds: “Because of you I was bullied for seven years ...” Mr Salbey hurls more verbal abuse and Sonboly screams back “... and now I have to buy a gun to shoot you.” Mr Salbey is appalled. “Your head should be cut off you a---,” he shouts.
Another voice accuses Sonboly of being Turkish before the man on the balcony shouts: “F------ foreigner.” The neighbour filming the scene then realises Sonboly has a pistol. “He’s got a gun! He has loaded his gun. Get the cops here. He’s walking around here.”
Sonboly seems appalled to be accused of being a foreigner. “I am German,” he protests, adding: “I was born here.” He then says he was born in a poor area of Germany and tells the onlooker: “Please shut your mouth.” By now, hundreds of police were all over the area, many in combat gear.
Makeshift emergency clinics were set up at the scene. Survivors were led from the shopping centre, their hands up to show they had no weapons. Police were still convinced there were several terrorists active on the ground.
Sonboly walked to a street a little over half a mile away where his body was found some three hours after the initial shootings. It is thought he killed himself. Police reportedly used a robot to check his body for explosives before his identity could be ascertained. His victims were mainly youngsters. Three were 14 and two only 15 years old.
Can Leyla, 14, and his friend Selcuk Kilic, 15, both of Turkish origin – both killed – were enjoying a typical Friday evening out as teenagers do. Postings on Facebook show the close bond between the two boys. He is a “top brother”, Can wrote of Selcuk in March.
Two other members of their group were also murdered – Sabina Sulaj, 14, and her best friend Armela Segashi, also 14. Both were of Kosovan origin. A fifth member of the group is thought to have been seriously injured. Armela’s elder brother, Arbnor Segashi, had asked Facebook friends at midnight on Friday to help him locate his sister, saying she had been at the shopping centre and the family had not heard from her since news of the shooting broke.
But at 8am yesterday, Arbnor wrote on Facebook in German and Albanian: “Armela – our beloved daughter, sister, friend and first of all beloved human being – today lost her life in the shooting in Munich. We love you, angel.”
One friend of Sabina and Can wrote on Facebook in a series of public posts: “Sabi, you were an angel, always you came to me when I felt bad, took me into your arms and made me laugh. I love you, rest in peace my darling…”
“Rest in peace, Sabina and Armela,” another friend wrote. “You’ll always be in our hearts.”
In a heartbreaking post on Facebook, a witness to their deaths, Dilan Demir, wrote: “I was close to the scene and
‘This is a fake account ... the boy [Ali Sonboly] is psychologically disturbed and only wants attention’
was hiding with a friend. When it was very quiet we got up and saw five people. They looked dead, one of them was him [Selcuk]. He lay with his head on the table. His two other friends, and two girls, lay on the floor. I later learnt from a friend who was there that one of his friends will survive 90 per cent. I am so sorry this happened and [I’m writing this in case] the police needs a witness statement.”
Another victim of Albanian descent, Dijamant Zabergja, 21, was the first to be identified yesterday. His father Naim arrived at the scene of the shootings, clutching his son’s photograph and was allowed past the police cordon to say his goodbyes close to the spot where Dijamant was mown down.
Naim wrote on Facebook: “With deep sadness I must tell relatives, acquaintances and friends that my son Dijamant Zabergja was killed aged 21 at the hands of terrorists in Munich.” He told German press agency DPA that Dijamant – which means diamond – met a friend for a drink at the shopping centre. “His friend ran away, but [the shooter] killed my son,” said Mr Zabergja.
Ridvan Tahiri, the dead man’s uncle, posted: “Today I learned the painful news for you my nephew, Dijamant Zabergja ... Those who spilt your blood will pay dearly, I swear.”
A seventh victim was named yesterday as Gulliano Kollman, an 18-year-old German. A floral tribute was set up opposite the centre, the word “memories” written at the centre of it.
Yesterday afternoon, family and friends of the oldest victim to die – Sevda Dag – lit a candle in her memory.
Mrs Dag, 45, a mother of two, had just finished work when she went to meet friends. She was gunned down outside McDonald’s. “I feel really sad,” said Suna, 22, her son’s girlfriend. “We can’t understand why this has happened. She was friendly, she laughed a lot and she has two children who she loved so much.”
A 17-year-old Greek boy, said to be from the country’s minority Muslim population, was also a victim, it was reported. His identity was not released.
But stories of heroics emerged, too. A freelance journalist told the BBC that one man, shot twice and thought to have been killed, was said to have pushed his sister away as the gunman opened fire outside McDonald’s.
However, Sonboly, whatever his motive, had wreaked his havoc and several young lives had been destroyed.