The teenager behind the deadly shooting rampage in Munich planned the attack for a year, German authorities said Sunday.
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Police have arrested a 16-year-old on suspicion of knowing about the Munich shooting spree carried out by deranged loner Ali Sonly and failing to report it.
The shooter, identified as David Ali Sonboly, 18, by the German media, also received two months of psychiatric treatment previous year and played shooting video games, including Counter-Strike: Source, according to Thomas Steinkraus-Koch, a spokesman for the Munich prosecutor’s office.
The crime office head said that the Glock pistol that Sonboly used in the shooting was probably purchased through the “dark web” market.
Bavaria’s chief prosecutor Thomas Steinhaus-Koch said the gunman was treated for anxiety and been hospitalized for psychiatric treatment from July to September 2015, followed by out-patient treatment as recently as last month.
Three people were also injured in the attack, which ended when the 21-year-old assailant was hit by a vehicle.
The attack comes as Germany is on edge following a rampage at a Munich mall on Friday night in which nine people were killed and an axe attack on a train a week ago that left five wounded.
Police said he was questioned over his relationship with the gunman who had been planning the attack for a year, allegedly to get back at those who had bullied him.
“But whether the acts or the motivation of those killers inspired the Munich shooter is still under investigation”, the minister said, as Soraya reported.
In a separate development in the southern German city of Ansbach on Sunday, police said a man was killed when an explosive device he was believed to be carrying went off near an open-air music festival, injuring 10 people.
He said that Sonboly had likely used a hacked Facebook account to lure people to a McDonald’s restaurant, “offering them special reductions”.
Sonboly also a fan of “first-person shooter” video games, including Counter-Strike: Source, Heimberger said, according to AP. It had been a theatre prop, but had been restored to fully functioning.
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“Then we have to evaluate very carefully if and where further legal changes are needed”, he said in an interview published today.
