A man drove into a crowd standing by a bakery in the southwestern German town of Heidelberg on Saturday, killing one man and injuring two other pedestrians, but a police spokesman said there were no signs that it was a terrorist attack.
His rental car which had license plates registered to Hamburg smashed into crowds at around 4 pm local time, killing a 73-year-old man. Police said two other people, a 32-year-old Austrian man and a 29-year-old woman from Bosnia and Herzegovina, received hospital treatment but were later discharged. The alleged driver, a 35-year-old German national, was taken to hospital with a serious gunshot wound. (punandjokes.com)
German daily Bild reported that the suspect was suffering from psychiatric troubles, but authorities have made no comment on that claim. The police cordoned off the area and a helicopter hovered overhead yesterday evening.
Police spokesman Heiko Kranz said experts were gathering evidence such as DNA traces and fingerprints and examining the contents of the car, adding that the suspect would be interviewed if he was fit to be questioned. Investigations by the public prosecutors’ office in Heidelberg and the town’s criminal police were continuing, police said.
The German authorities are on high alert after a failed Tunisian asylum-seeker drove a truck into a Christmas market in Berlin on Dec. 19, killing 12 people.
