TRAM CARNAGE
Terror eyed as 3 shot dead in Holland
A Turkish gunman allegedly killed three people and wounded five on a tram in the Dutch city of Utrecht as authorities were investigating a possible terror motive.
Several eyewitnesses said the shooter appeared to target a woman and then turned his gun on several people who tried dragging her to safety.
After a frantic, eight-hour manhunt and several raids by anti-terror police, Gokmen Tanis, 37, was arrested for the mid-morning shooting near a busy intersection in the southwest part of the city.
The Netherlands’ Justice Minister Ferd Grapperhaus said it was too early to say whether the suspect had a terror motive.
“The suspect was known within the Justice Department. He had a criminal record. I can give no more details,” Grapperhaus said.
Among other crimes, Tanis was convicted of attempted murder and recently appeared in court on charges of raping a woman in 2017, according to Dutch media.
Prime Minister Mark Rutte said some of the wounded were “still in critical condition.”
“There was an attack today in the Netherlands — if it had terror motives, that is being investigated. But it was very serious. The world shares our grief,” he said.
Fears of a terrorist attack swirled throughout the city of about 334,000 in the central Netherlands, about 25 miles from Amsterdam, three days after a gunman killed 50 people at two mosques in New Zealand.
Counterterrorism authorities raised the terrorism level in the surrounding Utrecht province to the highest level until the suspect was nabbed, when it was lowered by a notch.
Police earlier released a surveillance photo taken aboard the tram of the bearded suspect dressed in a blue jacket, asking for the public’s help in tracking him down by calling a hotline number.
The image was time-stamped at 10:41 a.m. local time — about four minutes before the shooting began.
“Do not approach him,” police warned of the suspect.
Utrecht Mayor Jan van Zanen initially said authorities were “working on the principle that it was a terrorist attack,” adding that “we cannot exclude, even stronger, we assume a terror motive.”
Hours after the shooting, the gunman’s motive remained unclear.
A prosecutor said it could be for “family reasons” and Turkey’s staterun Anadolu news agency, quoting the suspect’s relatives, said he had shot at a relative on the tram.
Witness Daan Molenaar told broadcaster NOS that he had been on the tram when the shooting started and did not believe it was a terrorist attack.
“The first thing I thought was this is some kind of revenge or something, or somebody who’s really mad and grabbed a pistol,” he said.
Area resident Jimmy de Koster described the unfolding “chaos.”
“I came from my work when it happened. I am standing at the traffic lights . . . and I see a woman lying down, I think she is between 20 and 35 years old,” he told De Telegraaf.
“At that time I heard, Bang! Bang! Bang! Four men walked very fast toward her and they tried to drag her away and then I heard three more bangs and those guys let go of that woman again.”