Munich shopping centre was cordoned off after the shooting.
Munich:
A lone attacker, who went on shooting rampage on Friday at a busy shopping centre in Munich killing nine people and wounding several others before committing suicide, had sent out Facebook invites to people urging them to visit the mall for a free giveaway, police has said.
Here are the 10 developments in this big story:
- Police say the gunman was an 18-year-old German-Iranian from Munich who was not previously known to police. He had suffered depression and reportedly undergone psychiatric treatment, the prosecutor said.
- He opened fire at a McDonald's restaurant and continued onto a street before entering the mall near the Olympic stadium in Germany's third largest city. 16 people, including several children, were injured in the attack and three were in critical condition.
- A Munich police investigator said the attacker had hacked a Facebook account of a young woman and urged people to come to the mall at 4 p.m., saying: "I'll give you something if you want, but not too expensive."
- "There is absolutely no link to the ISIS," Munich police chief Hubertus Andrae said. But supporters of ISIS celebrated on social media. The police described the attack as "a classic act by a deranged person."
- A video posted on social media from the location appeared to show a man dressed in black walking away from the McDonald's while firing repeatedly on people as they fled.
- Citing eyewitness accounts, police had initially said they were looking for up to three suspects in the shooting attack at the Munich Olympia Shopping Centre. But they later clarified that the shooter was believed to have staged the attack alone.
- No Indian casualty was reported. The Indian embassy has issued helpline numbers: 0171-2885973, 01512- 3595006, 0175-4000667.
- It was the third major act of violence against civilians in Western Europe in eight days. Previous attacks in France and Germany were claimed by the ISIS terror group.
- The shopping centre is next to the Munich Olympic stadium, where the Palestinian militant group Black September took 11 Israeli athletes hostage and eventually killed them during the 1972 Olympic Games.
- Friday's attack took place a week after a 17-year-old asylum-seeker assaulted passengers on a German train with an axe. Bavarian police shot the teenager dead after he wounded four people from Hong Kong on the train and injured a local resident while fleeing.
