The shooter, identified by local media as German-Iranian Ali David Sonboly, 18, had visited the site of a 2009 school shooting in the town of Winnenden previous year and took pictures, then he started planning Friday’s shooting spree, Heimberger, said, according to the Associated Press.
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Documents found in his home confirmed that he suffered from mental illness, including depression and anxiety, Munich prosecutor Thomas Steinkraus-Koch said on Sunday.
The 18-year-old man who opened fire in a crowded Munich shopping mall on Friday was fascinated by mass shootings.
Earlier, they had said he may have hacked another person’s account, but they clarified on Sunday that it was an entirely fake account set up in another person’s name. A 20-year-old and a 45-year-old were also killed.
In the fog of the Friday attack, witnesses had reported as many as three shooters, and the city’s public transit was completely shut down for hours as authorities hunted for the shooter.
The attack came just days after a teenage asylum seeker went on a rampage with an axe and a knife on a train on Monday near Wuerzburg, also in Bavaria, injuring five people.
Authorities also said the shooting was connected to neo-Nazi Anders Breivik. As a result, some Germans are beginning to lose faith in Chancellor Angela Merkel’s open-door refugee policy.
The gunman took his own life following the attack in which 27 people were injured – 10 of whom are in a critical condition, including a 13-year-old boy.
The strict application process didn’t stop Sonboly from acquiring an illegal weapon, of course, but it appears to have helped Germany reduce gun-related deaths to 57 a year ago, down from more than 800 in 1995, according to the website GunPolicy.org. That compares with about 13,445 people killed in the United States by firearms in 2015, according to the Gun Violence Archive.
An official did note, however, that none of Sonboly’s classmates were among the victims.
Elsewhere, Kosovo is holding a day of mourning for its three nationals who were killed in Munich on July 22.
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The shooting spree sparked a terror alert, with Europe on edge following a string of attacks claimed by the Islamic State (IS) group, but investigators have ruled out that Sonboly had any link with the jihadists.
