Spotlight: Germany mourns victims of Munich shootout
Xinhua, July 23, 2016 Adjust font size:
"With heavy heart, we all mourn with the families," said German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Saturday in her first statement after the shootout in Munich killed 10 and injured 27 people on Friday night.
"We share their pain, we suffer with them. Such a evening, such a night are hard to bear," said the Chancellor after a meeting of the security cabinet in Berlin.
She thanked the people of Munich, who have made their homes available on the evening of the murder, and promised that everything will be done to find out how the ax-wielding man in Wuerzburg radicalized and how the shootout happened in Munich.
Following Merkel, German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said that society must stand together in these times. He can understand when people get upset because of the short time between the acts in Nice, Wuerzburg and Munich.
Earlier this day, Bavarian Prime Minister Horst Seehofer announced a memorial ceremony in parliament on Sunday in a week.
The 18-year-old German-Iranian, a Munich-born and raised student, shot nine people dead early Friday evening and then killed himself.
The perpetrator has no relation to the Islamic State (IS), said Munich police chief Hubertus Andrae on Saturday in a press conference, adding that the search of the room of the 18-year-old revealed that he had dealt intensively with killing spree.
Five days ago, an axe wielding man wounded five passengers in a late Monday night attack on a regional train near Wuerzburg in the southern German state of Bavaria. According to German police, the attack was probably politically motivated.
Meanwhile, German investigators have found "documents about amok-runs" during a search of the residence of the shooter, who killed 10 and injured 27 people in the shooting attack in Munich on Friday evening, Andrae told the press conference.
Andrae added that the search of the room of the 18-year-old revealed that he had dealt intensively with killing spree.
The investigators assumed a connection with the attack of the Norwegian Anders Behring Breivik.
"This connection is obvious," said Andrae. On Friday, Norway marks the fifth anniversary of Breivik's rampage in 2011 that killed 77 people.
In the Munich shooting attack, most victims are adolescents or young adults. The people were killed in or in front of a fast food restaurant and in the Olympia shopping center.
According to the police, the perpetrator shot with a 9-millimeter calibre pistol that he had probably obtained illegally, while 300 cartridges were found in his backpack. However, it is still unknown where he got the gun and the money for it.
The perpetrator was not in the police register. However, he was allegedly depressed and was under psychiatric treatment, which fits with the other findings of the crime, according to the investigators. Endit