Daily Times

MUNICH: German police department said that David Ali Sonboly (18-year-old German-Iranian student) had battled depression – not previously known – committed suicide after killing nine people on Friday.

“A quiet, helpful teenager who loved playing video games,” said Sonboly’s neighbours. They said that there were no warning signs before his deadly rampage at the Munich shopping mall. He had 300 bullets in his rucksack when he began gunning people down at the Olympia shopping centre, which was minutes away from his flat that he shared with his family, according to authorities.

Officials suggested that he may have posed as a girl on Facebook and posted information about a fake McDonald’s promotion to lure people to the fast-food restaurant where he first opened fire. Munich Police Chief Hubertus Andrae told a press conference on Saturday that there were no indications linking Sonboly to the Islamic State group or that the killings were motivated by politics.

He did acknowledge that Sonboly had extensively researched the theme of rampages and may have read about the lethal killing spree by white supremacist Anders Behring Breivik, saying that there was an ‘obvious link’ between Breivik’s crimes and the Friday’s shooting. The carnage came on the fifth anniversary of the right-wing fanatic’s massacre in Norway that killed 77 people.

Sonboly had reportedly received psychiatric treatment in the past as he battled with depression. His neighbours say that he was born to Iranian parents – a taxi driving father and a mother who worked at a department store. He also had a brother.

They have yet to be interviewed by police “because of their state as they lost their son,” said the Munich prosecutor. The family lived together in a tidy, recently-built social housing block that is mostly home to immigrant families, located next to a luxury Maserati car showroom in the well-heeled Maxvorstadt neighbourhood.

– ‘I was born here’ –

Sedik Ali, a 29-year-old neighbour originally from Afghanistan, remembered Sonboly as a lonely teenager who rarely hung out with the other kids. “It’s strange but he never spoke with us,” said Ali, who regularly played football with the gunman’s brother in a nearby park.

Delfye Dalbi, a neighbour originally from Macedonia, described him as “a good person”, like many in the area remembering that he had a job distributing free newspapers. “I know this boy very well – he was always here to help,” she said.

“He would give you the newspaper, he was nice. He was never bitter or angry. I feel so sorry for this family but also for the boy,” she said and added, “I never heard of him having problems with the police or other neighbours. He laughed like a normal person.”

But a video posted on social media appeared to cast Sonboly in a different light, showing a man dressed in black walking away from the McDonald’s restaurant while firing repeatedly on people as they fled. Survivors described terrifying scenes as shoppers rushed from the area, some carrying children in their arms.

Another video showed Sonboly on the top floor of a multi-storey car park exchanging a tirade of insults with nearby bystanders. At one point the gunman appears to mention being a victim of bullying though his words cannot be heard clearly.

“I’m German, I was born here,” the assailant is heard to reply after one man reeled off a volley of swear words, including an offensive term for foreigners. At another point, he says, “I was in the hospital.” During the heated exchanges, a bystander on the balcony cries out, “He’s got a gun here, the guy has one.”

A police source cited by a local news agency said Sonboly loved playing violent video games. He was an admirer of the 17-year-old German who shot dead 15 people at his school near Stuttgart in 2009 before turning the gun on himself, the source added.

“All his body language said ‘I don’t want to talk to you,’” remembered Stephan, a cafe waiter on the ground floor of Sonboly’s housing block. “He wasn’t like other guys his age – cool, full of energy, with the latest haircuts. He seemed calmer. He was a shy boy,” said the waiter.