The alleged perpetrator of the shooting at a Jehovah’s Witnesses center in Hamburg killed himself when the police arrived, after killing seven people on Thursday, local authorities announced on Friday.
“The perpetrator fled to the first floor” of the building where members of the community were gathered for a prayer session, “and killed himself,” said the city’s interior minister. of Hamburg Andy Grote during a press conference. »
Armed with a pistol, he killed four men and two women aged between 33 and 60, one of whom was seven months pregnant and whose unborn baby is counted among the victims, authorities said.
Eight people were injured, four of them seriously.
The rapid arrival of the police, who interrupted his act, made it possible to avoid an even heavier toll, authorities said.
The suspect is a 35-year-old man, designated Philipp F. by authorities, who was himself a former member of the community, with which he was in conflict, police said.
His motives remain to be determined. “There are no indications of a terrorist context,” said a representative of the Hamburg prosecutor’s office. But he may have suffered from psychiatric disorders.
The man, who had no criminal history, “nurtured a rage against members of religious congregations, particularly Jehovah’s Witnesses and his previous employer,” the police representative explained at the conference.
The police had however received in January an “anonymous letter” affirming that Philipp F. could suffer “from a psychiatric illness without this having been certified by a doctor as Philipp F. refused to consult” a specialist.
Forced passage
“Our son filmed everything, by chance, he could see well from the window on the floor of our house, about 50 meters” from the center, Bernd Mibache told AFP.
“On the video, we see someone breaking a window, we hear gunshots and we see someone entering” the scene, describes the 66-year-old entrepreneur who was not at home at the time of the events. .
Jehovah’s Witnesses said in a statement “shocked” by “the horrible attack” against some of their members, which occurred “after a religious service”.
The police “were called around 9:15 p.m. for shots fired” in the building located in the Gross Borstel district, said a police spokesman.
The intervention forces “entered the building very quickly and found dead and seriously injured people there”, according to this spokesperson.
Inside, officers also heard a gunshot “coming from the top of the building” and found another person, the spokesperson continued. It was obviously the shooter.
“I heard gunshots, I immediately recognized them because I come from a country at war”, told AFP a woman in her forties wishing to remain anonymous, residing near the center.
“It went on for several minutes, gunfire then a pause, and again gunfire, and again a pause,” she describes.
“The police arrived very quickly, maybe 4 to 5 minutes after the shots,” said Anetta, a local resident met by AFP while walking her dog.
‘Terrible act of violence’
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz sent his “thoughts” to the victims of the shooting and their loved ones on Friday, deploring in a tweet “a brutal act of violence”.
Interior Minister Nancy Faeser also reacted on Twitter saying she was “shattered by the terrible act of violence perpetrated in a community of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Hamburg”.
Founded in the 19the century in the United States, Jehovah’s Witnesses consider themselves the heirs of primitive Christianity and constantly and only refer to the Bible.
The status of the organization varies from country to country: they are legally considered the same as the “major” religions in Austria and Germany, which has just over 170,000 members of this faith. , including 3,800 in Hamburg, according to the Witnesses website.
In France, many of their local branches have the status of “cult association”, and this rigorous movement is regularly accused of sectarian aberrations.