The German-Iranian teenager who shot dead nine people in Munich on Friday started planning the attack one year ago, a German official said on Sunday.
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However, he appeared to have planned the assault with chilling precision, with Bavarian police chief Robert Heimberger telling a press conference yesterday that Sonboly had visited the site and taken photos during a year of preparation.
The Munich prosecutors’ office told the news conference that the gunman had spent two months as an inpatient at a mental care facility in 2015 and was afterwards treated as an outpatient.
The teenager who killed nine people during a mass shooting in Munich had been planning the attack for a year, police say.
Heimberger said that Sonboly’s parents were still in shock from what happened and have not been able to be interviewed.
“There, it also became apparent to the (Afghan) suspect that the attacker was interested in Breivik”, Steinkraus-Koch added, referring to Anders Breivik, who killed 77 people in back-to-back attacks in Norway in 2011.
“There is a suspicion that the 16-year-old is a possible tacit accomplice to (Friday’s) attack”, it said.
His attack, which began at a McDonald’s branch, also left 35 people injured.
An armed police man guards the downtown pedestrian zone near Marienplatz square following the rampage shooting in Munich last week. He had a 9mm Glock pistol and at least 300 rounds of ammunition, police said.
Authorities, still trying to determine a motive, were investigating reports that the shooter had been bullied by peers, the interior minister said. A 20-year-old and a 45-year-old were also killed.
“It would be completely incomprehensible… if we had a terrorist situation like Brussels in Frankfurt, Stuttgart or Munich and we were not permitted to call in the well-trained forces of the Bundeswehr”, he said.
The shooter regularly played a video game “Ego-Shooter”, which features mass killings, according to a police statement.
German politicians urged tighter gun legislation Sunday even though they are among the most restrictive in the world.
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German police raided the family’s apartment Saturday morning after finding Sonboly dead of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound. “Such a evening, such a night are hard to bear”, said the Chancellor after a meeting of the security cabinet in Berlin.
