Its serial numbers were filed off and he had no permit to purchase weapons, authorities have said.
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It is still unclear exactly what motivated the Munich killer, but one video taken during the attack shows him pacing on a flat roof, shouting “I’m German” at the person filming.
Prosecutor Steinkraus Koch told the news conference the suspect had a book titled: Why Kids Kill: Inside the Minds of School Shooters. CNN’s Atika Shubert interviewed people who live in that building.
“There is no indication that there is a link to ISIS”, Andrae said.
Following a police search of the attacker’s room, Munich police chief Hubertus Andrae all but ruled out an Islamist link in the killings.
Police said Sonboly posed as a teenage girl on a fake Facebook account to lure victims to a shopping mall and McDonalds, where he gunned them down. Investigators were still working to confirm that, he said. Seven were teenagers, one was a 20-year-old man, and one a 45-year-old woman.
Munich residents described scenes of chaos and panic as the shooting unfolded and bystanders ran for cover. Turkey’s Foreign Ministry said three of the victims were also Turkish nationals, naming them as Sevda Dag, born in 1971; Can Leyla, born in 2001; and Selcuk Kilic, according to Turkey’s semiofficial Anadolu news agency. Three of the victims were 14, two were 15, one was 17 and another 19. “We are trying to get the people out and take care of them”, the spokeswoman said.
On Twitter, Munich police said eight people are dead and an unknown number wounded after shots were fired at the Olympia Shopping Center Friday evening.
About 2,300 police from across Germany and neighboring Austria were scrambled in response to the attack, which began at a McDonald’s across the street from the mall. “And for a long time we didn’t even have an idea if there were three shooters, if there was an organization behind it or not”, he said.
“We know that in the apartment of the perpetrator, material was found which leads to him being interested in those who go on a rampage”, he said.
“Today, fighting terrorism, in any form and place, is an urgent demand of the world community.that should be considered as the top priority by all countries in an global consensus”, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qasemi was quoted as saying by state news agency IRNA.
He said he spoke to the mother of a wounded victim, and told her the young man would make it, “but he was saying to me ‘I don’t want to die but I am dying'”.
According to Reuters, Chancellor Angela Merkel was due to meet her chief of staff Peter Altmaier, Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere and intelligence officials on Saturday to review the incident.
Speaking from her office in Berlin, the German leader said: “All of us, and I say this on behalf of the whole government, are mourning with heavy hearts those who will never be able to return to their families”.
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“To the families, the parents and children for whom everything today seems empty and pointless, I say personally and in the name of many, many people in Germany: we share your pain, we’re thinking of you and we’re suffering with you”.
