One dead after car driven into pedestrians in Germany

A MAN drove a car into pedestrians in the German city of Heidelberg yesterday, killing one person and injuring two others, then fled on foot brandishing a knife before being intercepted and shot by police officers.

Video footage on Twitter showed the alleged attacker surrounded by officers with their guns drawn, who shouted orders at him and then opened fire after a tense standoff.

Police said there were no indications of terrorism but that one of the three people hit outside a bakery in a central square of the picturesque town was seriously injured.

The man, a 73-year-old German citizen, died from his injuries in hospital about two hours after the attack.

The other two people injured were a 32-year-old Austrian man and a 29year-old woman from Bosnia. Both were treated for minor injuries before being discharged.

The suspected attacker, a 35-yearold German man, was undergoing surgery in a local hospital last night.

Police said they did not have any information on the motive for the attack, which came just over two months after an asylum seeker killed 12 people when he drove a lorry into a crowd in Berlin.

The suspect got out of his Hamburgregistered rental car after ploughing into the three people and was seen brandishing a knife as he made off.

Police intercepted him just five hundred yards away and ordered him to put down his weapon during a short standoff, Heidelberg24 news website reported.

The man refused to obey and it was then that an officer opened fire, it said.