Germany finds no terror link for gunman
MUNICH — He had been bullied at more than one school. He played violent video games and developed a fascination with mass shootings. He kept a copy of the German edition of “Why Kids Kill: Inside the Minds of School Shooters,” a study by an American academic psychologist, and he was treated for psychiatric problems.
Somewhere along the way, Ali Sonboly got his hands on a 9-millimeter Glock handgun, and hundreds of rounds of ammunition for it. And at 5:52 p.m. Friday, at a McDonald’s in Munich a few miles from where he lived with his mother, father and brother, he started shooting.
Sonboly, 18, moved on to a shopping mall across the street, then to the top level of an adjacent parking garage. By the time his rampage was done, he had killed eight other young people, one middle-aged person and himself. Sudden, violent outlet
It was the third mass attack in Europe in little over a week, after the killings of 84 people in Nice, France, and an attack by a young refugee wielding an ax and a knife in Germany that left five people wounded.
But unlike those two attacks, the one in Munich appeared, based on initial evidence, to have no overt links to the Islamic State or other terrorist groups, officials said Saturday. Nor did it seem to be directly linked to the wave of migration that has fueled racial, ethnic and religious tensions in Germany and across Europe.
Instead, according to accounts by the police, prosecutors, and neighbors and schoolmates of Sonboly, this most recent assault appeared to be of a less ideological and more personal sort: a sudden, violent outlet for a quietly troubled young man.
There were indications that Sonboly’s rampage might not have been entirely without political overtones. It was carried out on the fifth anniversary of a massacre in Norway by Anders Behring Breivik, a right-wing extremist who killed 77 people. Asked about a possible link based on the date, the Munich police chief, Hubertus Andrae, said that “this connection is obvious” and was part of their investigation.
But the initial picture of Sonboly that emerged in the hours after police officers found him dead, less than a mile from the shopping mall with a backpack full of ammunition and a single bullet wound to his head, was of a young man whose concerns were much closer to home.
Born and raised in Munich, he held both German and Iranian citizenship. His parents immigrated to Germany, and his father drives a cab. A student at a nearby public school, he was known to adult neighbors as a polite boy who delivered newspapers. He grew up in a secular household, neighbors said, and the family took pleasure in celebrations like birthdays and the Iranian New Year.
Some news reports identified him as David Ali Sonboly, though he was known to everyone as Ali.
“He was always friendly, very friendly,” said Tovaiau Edo, 32, who lives in the family’s apartment building. “When I saw him and saw the story, it’s like two different people. Not the same people. I cannot believe this.” Struggled with bullies
But officials and neighbors said Saturday that Sonboly had been struggling on several levels.
He had two previous encounters with the police, both times as a victim, once having been bullied by three other young people and once having been robbed.
He spent considerable time playing violent online video games.
He had been getting psychiatric treatment, possibly for depression, officials said.
“He was always nice, kind, helpful,” said a 14-year-old neighbor who attended the same school on Alfons Street as the attacker and asked to be identified only by her first name, Safete.
Safete said that she had seen the attacker at their apartment building around midday Friday and that “he didn’t greet me, like he normally does.”
Safete said the gunman had argued at one point with a schoolmate, “and said that he was going to go on a shooting rampage.”
She added that she could not remember the name of the schoolmate, or the date of the altercation.
Safete’s 15-year-old cousin, who gave her name as Majlinda and attends the same school, said the gunman had been bullied at his current school and a former one.
“This has nothing to do with Islam,” she said. “It’s because he was bullied.”
A woman in a neighboring building, whose balcony faced the Sonboly family’s balcony, said she and her 10-year-old son had become friendly with Ali.
But the woman, who asked to be identified only by her first name, Paulina, said she and her son had both noticed something off about him.
“Ali was somehow closed up on the inside,” Pauline said.
“He had something. I don’t know what it is, but something was wrong.”