Were teens lured to diner by killer’s fake ad for free food?
Seven of the Munich dead were under 20
Seven of the victims of the Munich massacre were teenagers – lured to their deaths by a fake promise of free burgers.
Mass murderer Ali Sonboly – obsessed with spree shootings – lured victims to a McDonald’s restaurant with a bogus advert on social media.
The 18-year- old, known to have mental health issues, burst out with a pistol and opened f ire in the packed restaurant on Munich’s Hanauer Street.
He then continued his bloody spree in the shopping centre and on the streets around Munich’s Olympic quarter.
After claiming nine lives with his 9mm Glock pistol, he took his own.
Police said two of his victims were 13, three victims were 14, one was 17 and another was 19. The remaining two were 21 and 45.
Three of the dead were ethnic Albanians from Kosovo and three were Turks.
Last night, as officials warned the death toll could rise, Germany’s inter ior minister Thomas de Maiziere said Sonboly, who was born in Germany, had an obsession with
mass killings and mental health issues.
He added that the teenager, who was of Iranian descent, was from a Shia Muslim background and may have converted to Christianity. But he is not believed to have been religious.
And he had no apparent links to Islamic State – Sunnis who see Shias as apostates .
Police who raided his parents’ flat discovered piles of documents about spree shootings.
There was also a book, Why Kids Kill: Inside The Minds of School Shooters.
And Munich pol ice chief Hubertus Andrae said that there was an “obvious” link between the massacre on Friday and Norwegian neo-Nazi Anders Behring Breivik’s slaughter in Norway.
Breivik killed 77 people with bombs and guns exactly five years before Sonboly’s rampage.
Reports suggest the teenager changed his WhatsApp prof ile picture to that of Breivik.
Andrae said there was “absolutely no link to the Islamic State” and described the assault as a “classic act by a deranged person”.
Pol ice investigator Rober t Heimberger said it appeared Sonboly had hacked a young woman’s Facebook account and attracted people to the shopping centre with an offer of free food.
The posting urged people to come at 4 pm.
Heimberger said: “It appears it was prepared by the suspect and then sent out.”
Last night, the site of the massacre was laden with flowers as Germany continued to mourn the victims of Friday’s deadly attacks.
Twenty-seven people were being treated in the city’s hospitals for injuries sustained in the attack.
Ten people – including a 13-yearold boy – remained in a critical condition.
Officials warned that the death toll could rise.
In Kosovo, President Hashim Thaci has declared today a day of mourning for 21- year- old Dijamant Zabergja and the two teenage girls from his country who were killed.
He described them as “heroes in
the war for the joint freedom and val-values in Europe”.
Dijamant’s father visited the scene of the shooting yesterday holding a picture of his son.
Naim Zaber g ja wr o te on Facebook:” With great sadness I want to inform you that my son Dijamant Zabergja, 21, was killed yesterday in Munich.”
The young man’s uncle Baki said his nephew always travelled back to Kosovo on holiday.
“But not this time,” he said. “Because his path was cut by evil-doers. What more can I say? An angel left us.”
Horrifying witness accounts of the attacks have also emerged.
One woman told CNN: “I come out of the toilet and I hear, like an alarm, boom, boom, boom. He’s
killing the children. They couldn’t run.”
Thomas Salbey, 57, filmed the shooter on the roof of a car park near the Olympia Centre.
He had an angry exchange of words with him during which Sonboly shouted at him: “I’m German” and fired towards his balcony.
Salbey said: “I was drinking an after-work beer and heard the shots. Then people ran out of the shopping centre. It is directly underneath our house.
“I looked down from my balcony and saw how the man went through the glass entrance-way.
He had reloaded his pistol. I threw my beer bottle at him. It
shattered on the glass roof. But I think he didn’t hear it anyway,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel said last night that her country is in “deep and profound mourning”.
She said: “Nine people who were going shopping or wanted to eat something, they are now dead – it seems, according to the investigations, hit and killed by the bullets of one single perpetrator.”
Merkel pledged to “f ind out the background” of what happened.
She added: “What lies behind the people of Munich is a night of horror – we are still shocked by the pictures and reports of the witnesses.
The Chancellor said the operation between the agencies and security forces on Friday night was “seamless” and thanked them for thei r “phenomenal” effort.
She added: “We are in deep and profound mourning for those who will never return to their families. The families, siblings, friends to whom everything will be void and empty today.
“I would like to tell them, in the name of many, many people in Germany, we share in your grief, we think of you and we are suffering with you.
“Our thoughts also go out to the numerous injured people – may they recover quickly and completely.
“They will receive all the support they need. Such an evening and such a night are … are even more difficult to bear because we have had so many different and diff icult reports of
horrors in the past few days.”