Authorities are searching for the suspect's motive after a 24-year-old killed three women in a knife attack in southern Germany.
ADVERTISEMENTAuthorities are still searching for a possible motive after a 24-year-old man fatally stabbed three women in southern German.
The suspect was in custody on Saturday on suspicion of murder, as authorities examined his mental health and sought to determine whether he was radicalised.
The suspect walked into a store in Wuerzburg, went to the household goods department and asked a saleswoman where the knives were, regional police chief Gerhard Kallert said.
He then grabbed a knife and fatally stabbed three women in the store, before continuing to attack people outside.
Six people, most of them women, were seriously injured, and one of them remained in a life-threatening condition on Saturday.
People tried to hold the attacker down with chairs and sticks, videos on social media showed. Police eventually stopped the 24-year-old Somali with a shot to the leg.
The suspect was arrested and ordered by a judge to be held in jail on suspicion of three counts of murder, six of attempted murder and dangerous bodily harm; and another of bodily harm.
The man arrived in Germany in May 2015 and was granted "subsidiary protection," a status that falls short of full asylum. He had been in Wuerzburg since 2019, and was living in a homeless shelter.
Although he didn't have a criminal record, officials said there were two incidents earlier this year that resulted in him being sent briefly to a psychiatric hospital.
During an argument with residents and staff at the shelter in January, he brandished a kitchen knife, prosecutor Wolfgang Gruendler said.
He didn't attack or hurt anyone, but an investigation was opened and he was temporarily admitted to a psychiatric hospital. That investigation is still ongoing and a psychiatric evaluation is still outstanding.
Earlier this month, there was an incident in which someone gave him a lift and he didn't get out of the car. That again resulted in his admission to a psychiatric unit, but he was released after a day, prosecutors said. They said there had been no pattern of increasing problems.
Authorities also were looking at the possibility of the man having been radicalised as an Islamic extremist.
Kallert said a store detective and police officers reported hearing the suspect say “Allahu akbar,” Arabic for “God is great."
Bavaria's top security official, Joachim Herrmann, said that “further cautious indications” in that direction emerged from his questioning, without elaborating. Material with “hate messages” also was found but has yet to be evaluated, police said.
As to whether the man was mentally ill or radicalised, “we don't know either one thing or the other for sure at the moment, but I just want to note that they don't rule each other out,” Herrmann said. Authorities were examining a mobile phone and other evidence.
The case was handed over to prosecutors in Munich, the state capital, but not to federal prosecutors, who in Germany deal with terror cases.