Munich knife attack: Police arrest suspected attacker after manhunt

Eight people were wounded in a series of knife attacks in Munich on Saturday morning, but none of them sustained life-threatening injuries, police said.

A SWAT team arrested a 33-year-old German suspect after a three hour manhunt.

Police chief Hubertus Andrae said that investigators had ruled out terrorism or religion as a motive for the attack.

Read more: Four hospitalized after stabbing in Frankfurt train station

The suspect is believed to suffer from mental health problems. Police said the man was known by authorities for other offenses. 

The eight wounded were aged between 12 and 77-years-old.

During the manhunt, police described the suspect as a thickset man of about 40, with short blond hair, unshaven, wearing a green jacket, gray pants and a backpack with a sleeping pad attached. He was reportedly riding a black bicycle.

The suspect was detained in Ottobrunner Strasse, some 3.4 kilometers (2.1 miles) away from the Rosenheimer square where one of the attacks allegedly took place

Preliminary information indicated that the assailant acted alone. He reportedly picked his victims randomly in six different locations around Munich.

The authorities previously said they had deployed “all available police forces” to search for the attacker. The police called on people living in the Rosenheimer Platz area to remain indoors and avoid the area, as well as the areas near the Ostbahnhof railway station and Ostpark. 

Saturday’s attack triggered memories of the 2016 killing spree committed by a teenager in Munich. The shooter identified himself as a German and an Aryan and apparently wanted to target youths with Turkish and Albanian backgrounds.

cw,dj,es/aw (dpa, AFP, AP)

Article source: http://www.dw.com/en/munich-knife-attack-police-arrest-suspected-attacker-after-manhunt/a-41059900?maca=en-rss-en-ger-1023-xml-atom