The father of the 18-year-old man who perpetrated the shooting attack at a Munich shopping mall that left nine dead, alerted the police after recognizing his son in one of the first videos that began circulating the internet shortly after the massacre.
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The teen is also suspected of having played a role in a Facebook post that invited the public to a location near where the deadly shooting later took place, Reuters reported.
The teenager behind the deadly shooting rampage at a Munich mall had planned his attack for a year and chose his victims at random, investigators said Sunday.
He had voluntarily reported to a police station on Friday and was questioned about his relationship to his friend, the 18-year-old German-Iranian who had carried out the shooting.
“He had been planning this crime since last summer”, said Heimberger, citing a “manifesto” linked to the shooting found in the gunman’s locked room in the apartment he shared with his parents and brother.
The gunman, identified by sources as David Sonboly, opened fire near a busy shopping centre on Friday evening, killing nine and wounding 35 more, before turning the gun on himself as police approached several hours later.
Investigators looking into Friday’s mass shooting in Munich say the gunman spent more than a year preparing his attack. Turkey’s Foreign Ministry said three of the victims were also Turkish nationals.
With the rampage coming on the heels of the attacks by a Tunisian immigrant that killed 84 people in Nice, France, and by a young Afghan refugee wielding an axe and a knife who wounded five people on a train in Germany, fear spread quickly.
After a brief altercation with police, the gunman turned his refurbished Glock 17 pistol on himself, firing a bullet into his head, Steinkraus-Koch said.
Heimberger said there is still no evidence of any political motivation to the crime, nor that the shooter killed specific victims.
Steinkraus-Koch said Sonboly spent two months in a psychiatric unit previous year.
The weapon was likely to have been purchased through a website trafficking illegal weapons on the so-called “dark web”, and was a re-activated gun that had been modified to use in theatres.
Unverified video footage emerges showing a gunman outside a McDonald’s restaurant, thought to be on the same street, firing at people who are running from the scene. His family are understood to be in shock and police have been so far unable to interview them.
Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann told Welt am Sonntag newspaper Sunday: “In extreme situations like for example the terrorist attacks in Paris and Brussels we should also be able to call upon the Bundeswehr in Germany”.
“The investigation is still trying to determine where it came from”, Heimberger said, adding that the assailant was not the registered owner of the gun.
“(He) said he would treat them to what they wanted as long as it wasn’t too expensive – that was the invitation”, Heimberger said.
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Seven of his victims were themselves teenagers, who police said he may have lured to their deaths via a hacked Facebook account on what was the fifth anniversary of twin attacks by Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik that killed 77 people.
