World News | Munich Police Kill an Armed Man in an Exchange of Fire Near the Israeli Consulate
Get latest articles and stories on World at LatestLY. Police in Munich exchanged fire with a gunman near the Israeli Consulate in Munich on Thursday, fatally wounding him. Authorities said he may have been planning to attack the consulate on the anniversary of the attack on the 1972 Munich Olympics.
Munich, Sep 5 (AP) Police in Munich exchanged fire with a gunman near the Israeli Consulate in Munich on Thursday, fatally wounding him. Authorities said he may have been planning to attack the consulate on the anniversary of the attack on the 1972 Munich Olympics.
No one else was hurt in the shootout shortly after 9 am in an area near the consulate and a museum on the city's Nazi-era history. Officers had been alerted to a person carrying a gun in the Karolinenplatz area, near downtown Munich, and returned fire when he shot at them. The suspect, who was carrying an old long gun with a bayonet attached to it, died at the scene.
Five officers were at the scene at the time the gunfire erupted. Police quickly deployed about 500 officers to the area.
Police said the gunman was an 18-year-old from Austria, but investigators were still looking into his motive. They didn't give further details on the suspect, who left a car near the scene.
“We have to assume that an attack on the Israeli Consulate possibly was planned early today," Bavaria's top security official, state Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann, told reporters at the scene. “It's obvious that, if someone parks here within sight of the Israeli Consulate...then starts shooting, it most probably isn't a coincidence.”
Thursday was the 52nd anniversary of the attack by Palestinian militants on the Israeli delegation at the 1972 Munich Olympics, which ended with the death of 11 Israeli team members, a West German police officer and five of the assailants.
“There may be a connection — that must be cleared up,” Bavarian governor Markus Söder said.
Police said there was no evidence of any more suspects connected to the shooting on Thursday.
The Austria Press Agency reported that the assailant, an Austrian citizen with Bosnian roots, had come to the attention of authorities there last year but wasn't considered high-risk. Without naming sources, it said that data and a game had been found on his cellphone that suggested closeness to Islamic extremist ideology, but an investigation of him for possible membership in the Islamic State group was dropped. Prosecutors in Salzburg wouldn't immediately comment.
Israel's Foreign Ministry said the consulate was closed Thursday due to a memorial ceremony for the 1972 attack and none of its staff was hurt. The nearby Munich Documentation Centre for the History of National Socialism, which opened in 2015 and explores the city's past as the birthplace of the Nazi movement, also said all of its employees were unharmed.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog said he spoke with German counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier. He wrote on the social media platform X that “together we expressed our shared condemnation and horror” at the shooting.
The head of Germany's main Jewish organisation, Josef Schuster, said “there could have been a catastrophe in Munich today” and thanked police for intervening quickly.
Söder and German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser reiterated their strong commitment to protecting Jewish and Israeli facilities. (AP)
(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)