Sven Hoppe—AFP
Police say lone gunman was obsessed with mass killings and does not appear to have any ties to Islamic State group.
German investigators have established an “obvious link” between the Munich mall shooting and far-right Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik while ruling out any ties to the Islamic State group, police said on Saturday.
“The link is obvious,” Munich police chief Hubertus Andrae said at a press conference, describing the gunman as obsessed with mass killings. He added that he researched the theme of rampages, had documents relating to past violent incidents and may have researched Breivik’s lethal killing spree.
Friday’s carnage came on the fifth anniversary of rightwing fanatic Breivik’s massacre in Norway that killed 77 people, many of them youngsters.
Breivik is serving a maximum 21-year sentence, which can be extended if he is still considered dangerous, for killing eight people in a bombing outside a government building in Oslo and then gunning down another 69, most of them teenagers, at a Labor Youth camp on the island of Utoya on July 22, 2011.
Andrae said there were “no indications whatsoever” the 18-year-old German-Iranian gunman had any links to Islamic State group or that the killings were motivated by politics.
The Munich prosecutor also said the suspect—whose name has been withheld for the time being—had suffered depression and reportedly undergone psychiatric treatment.