German investigators say the teenage gunman who killed nine people Friday night in the Bavarian state capital of Munich received psychiatric treatment and planned the mass shooting for more than a year.

The 18-year-old identified only as David S. received inpatient treatment in 2015 for two months before getting outpatient care, said Thomas Steinkraus-Koch, a spokesman for the Munich prosecutors’ office. 

In addition to suffering from depression, “the suspect had fears of contact with others,” Steinkraus-Koch said at a Sunday news conference. 

The shooter, who killed himself after the attack, did not target specific people, nor is there evidence the shootings were politically motivated, Steinkraus-Koch said.

Bavarian investigator Robert Heimberger said the shooter took photographs when he visited the site of a previous school shooting in the southwestern German town of Winnenden.

Heimberger said the gunman probably bought his illegal weapon on the Internet, and added that he was an avid player of shooting video games. Guns are tightly controlled in Germany, and authorities are investigating precisely how the shooter obtained the Glock 17 handgun used in the attack.

Bavaria’s top security official said Sunday that Germany’s military should be able intervene in crisis situations like Friday night’s shooting rampage at the Munich mall. 

Friday’s attack took place four days after a 17-year-old Afghan refugee attacked passengers with an ax and a knife on a train in the German city of Wuerzburg. That teenager wounded four people before police shot him dead. Islamic State later claimed responsibility for the attack.

In late June, a masked man opened fire at a German movie complex in the western town of Viernheim, near Frankfurt, wounding several people. Special police officers shot him dead and freed several hostages.

Stephen Szabo of the Transatlantic Academy at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, told VOA the Wuerzburg attack, followed by the Munich shootings, will focus new scrutiny on Germany’s policy of accepting refugees fleeing world trouble spots. Chancellor Angela Merkel’s open policy on refugees is “very different than the policies you’ve seen in France and Belgium,” Szabo said. “…It means that the political ramifications are going to be pretty strong against her and against this open-door policy.”

Meanwhile, the southeastern European territory of Kosovo is having a day of mourning Sunday for three ethnic Albanians who were among those killed in Munich. Flags are at half-staff at all public institutions. Two other Albanians of Kosovo origin were also wounded.

Some material for this report came from AP and AFP. [Read More]

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Source: VOA News: Education