Teenage friend of Munich gunman arrested

A 16-year-old Afghan youth has been arrested by German police on suspicion of a connection to the killing of nine people by an 18-year-old gunman in Munich.

Steinkraus-Koch said there is still no evidence of any political motivation to the crime, nor that the shooter killed specific victims.

Police released more details of Munich attacker David Ali Sonboly on Sunday, saying the 18-year-old was depressed and had spent two months in a psychiatric unit last year.

Investigators found medication in his room but have so far been unable to ascertain whether he had been taking it on a regular basis.

Heimberger added that the parents of the gunman remained in shock and were not able to be interviewed.

Three of the victims are believed to be from Kosovo, three from Turkey and one from Greece – seven of the dead are understood to be teenagers.

Peter Langman says young gunmen are often looking for role models, and described the Munich attack as premeditated.

With an eye on the Nazi era excesses, Germany’s post-war constitution only allows the Bundeswehr to be deployed domestically in a national emergency.

But state Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann told Welt am Sonntag newspaper that the regulations are now obsolete and that Germans have a “right to safety”.

“We are assuming he may have suffered from depression”, he said.

Members of a special police forces in Munich, Germany.

Police told reporters that a search of the red backpack lying next to his black-clad corpse revealed that the shooter was carrying more than 300 rounds for the 9-millimeter handgun he used to kill his victims. On Monday, a 17-year-old Afghan asylum seeker wounded five people in an ax-and-knife rampage on a train near Wuerzburg, and the Islamic State has claimed responsibility.

Sonboly fled the scene of Friday evening’s attack – a mall adjacent to the stadium near where Palestinian terrorists took 11 Israelis hostage before killing the athletes and coaches at the 1972 Olympic Games – and apparently shot and killed himself. “From those, 57 were from the weapon of the attacker”.

However, Heimberger said on Sunday that the account was a fake. He said the weapon had been rendered unusable and sold as a prop before being restored to its original function. The victims were as young as 14 years old.

“Documents on shooting sprees were found, so the perpetrator obviously researched this subject intensively, Mr Andrae said”.