“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.
Advertisement
A neighbour on Dachauer Strasse that was searched by police on Saturday morning described the alleged gunman as “very quiet”.
“The investigators are working full tilt and will continue into the night”, Munich police chief Hubertus Andra told journalists late on Friday.
According to reports, the account was created a short time before the posts and was then disabled while the shooting was taking place on Friday.
Munich, capital of the southern German state of Bavaria, was rocked by the attack.
Video footage shows shoppers filing through the mall under police guard with their arms raised before lying down on the ground.
A number of “youths” were among the dead and children have also been shot, police said.
-6:43 p.m. First word from Munich police of “several dead and wounded” at the shooting.
Chancellor Angela Merkel was meeting with her top security advisors to review Friday’s attack and would issue a statement at 1230 GMT, her office said.
The paper also reported that a 45-year-old woman and a 15-year-old girl were said to be among the victims.
As authorities sought to piece together the circumstances of an attack behind which they had found no immediate evidence of an Islamist motive, Munich police said they would hold a 0930 GMT (5.30 am ET) news conference.
Police said earlier Saturday that they were hunting for something that could explain why the youth opened fire at the crowded Olympia Einkaufzentrum OEZ mall and a McDonald’s restaurant.
At least 2,300 police from across Germany and neighbouring Austria were scrambled in response to the attack, which happened less than a week after a 17-year-old Afghan asylum-seeker wounded five people in an axe-and-knife rampage that started on a regional train near the Bavarian city of Wuerzburg.
With parts of the crime scene now cleared and released – they said it was too soon to say as to when the Olympic shopping centre would re-open.
Police said the Wurzburg attacker appears to have been inspired by the Islamic State but they have not been able to establish any direct link to the extremist group.
But early Saturday (local time), a Munich police spokesman said it was now believed it was likely only one man was responsible for the shooting.
“These are hard hours for Munich”, he said, adding that the city’s citizens had shown great solidarity toward each other.
Police initially believed there could be up to three assailants.
In Pristina, media said three of the 18-year-old’s victims were of Kosovan origin.
Advertisement
Mr Andrae said inquiries suggested the suspect had lived in the city for more than two years and is not thought to have been known to law enforcement agencies.
