The author of the attack that killed seven people at a religious ceremony in Hamburg, in northern Germany, took his own life when police arrived at a Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses where he opened fire with a pistol, according to reports on this Friday (10) the local authorities.
“The person responsible fled to the first floor of the building and committed suicide there, so we’re talking about a total of eight dead,” Hamburg’s Home Secretary Andy Grote told a news conference.
The director of the police operation carried out on Thursday (9), Mathias Tresp, explained that when the agents entered the building where the Kingdom Hall is located, they immediately saw an individual with a firearm fleeing to an upper floor.
Then they found “a lifeless man with a fatal wound and a firearm by his side”.
Tresp pointed out that the police’s quick action allowed them to “isolate” the aggressor from the victims and prevented more deaths from happening.
Members of the Public Ministry of the Police Criminal Investigation Office reported, in turn, that the author, identified as Philipp F., of German nationality, had no criminal record of any kind.
In addition, authorities stated that the man had a permit to use weapons as a sport shooter.
The pistol the author used was registered in his name. In the home of the person responsible for the shooting, numerous boxes of ammunition were found.
Police also located electronic devices in the property that are being investigated.
Although the motivation for the attack is still unclear, evidence points to a political background. However, there are also suspicions about a personal dispute, without which details have been deepened.
Philipp P. had been a Jehovah’s Witness, but left the religious community about a year and a half ago, “voluntarily, but not amicably”, according to the spokesman for the Office of Criminal Investigation, Thomas Radzuweit. The circumstances surrounding this departure, however, are contradictory.
Of those killed in the attack, four are men and two are women, one of whom was seven months pregnant. The fetus is being considered as the shooter’s seventh victim.
In addition, eight people were injured, four of whom are hospitalized in serious condition.
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