German Chancellor Angela Merkel convened an emergency meeting of her security cabinet on Saturday as police ruled out any terrorist motive behind a teenage gunman’s rampage in Munich that left 10 people dead including the killer.
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Police said Sonboly acted alone and had no links to Islamic State, or to any immigrants who had recently arrived in Germany from the Middle East.
Investigators searched the unnamed suspect’s home overnight and found a considerable amount of literature about mass killings, including a book titled “Rampage in Head: Why Students Kill”.
The Munich attack took place 5 years to the day after that attack.
“I tried to put my hands on his wounds so he wouldn’t bleed to death”, Bayri said. He is reported to have then entered the mall to target more people before fleeing after encountering an armed plainclothes policeman.
Police say the shootings are not linked to Islamic State or the recent intake of refugees.
Breivik held radical right-wing views and said he hoped his attack would help stop Muslims from immigrating to Europe.
Police said they were investigating a video in which the gunman is heard shouting “I am German” and exchanging racial slurs and profanities with another man.
“Munich, a city which has known terror in the past, today mourns the innocent victims who were going about their daily lives on a Friday afternoon”, he said.
“Nine people who were going shopping on the Friday evening, or wanted to eat something, they are now dead – it seems according to the investigations, hit and killed by the bullets of one single perpetrator”.
It’s unclear who or how many people carried out the attacks, but police say witnesses are reporting at least three people with weapons.
Sonboly, according to the police, used someone else’s Facebook page to lure people to the McDonald’s where he murdered those people and injured others.
Initial reports that up to three gunmen may have been involved in the attack turned out to be incorrect, police said. Twenty-seven people were hospitalized, including four with gunshot wounds, said Andrae.
The gunman began shooting at a McDonald’s restaurant in Hanauer Street near the Olympic Park, before moving to the Olympia-Einkaufszentrum mall. “Europe stands united”, European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said on Twitter.
The city of Munich sent a smartphone alert telling people to stay indoors and German rail company Deutsche Bahn stopped train traffic to Munich’s main station.
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The Munich Olympia shopping center was evacuated and elite GSG 9 counterterrorism teams were sent to the city for a possible operation against the assailants.
