The man who killed two people when he drove a car into a crowded restaurant terrace in the German city of Münster at the weekend had hinted at suicide in a letter to friends and relatives, it emerged on Monday.
The lengthy suicide message, sections of which were published in the German press, appeared to confirm that the killer was suffering from psychological problems and was not motivated by political extremism.
The 48-year-old, who has been named as Jens Rüther, wrote that he had been conspired against throughout his life by everyone from his parents to doctors who operated on a back injury, according to excerpts published in Bild newspaper.
He claimed he had wished to be dead since the age of seven. He said he suffered from emotional outbursts as a child and blamed them on his parents, who he claimed had mistreated him. He claimed this had caused him to become impotent and that he suffered from a fear of being thought gay as a result.
He accused doctors of bungling an operation on his back after he suffered an injury in 2015, and claimed he was in constant pain as a result.
There were suggestions Rüther was considering suicide in the letter, but police said there was no indication that he was planning Saturday’s attack.
“The content gave hints of suicidal thoughts, but there was indication that others might be at risk,” an unnamed police officer told Spiegel magazine.
Rüther sent the letter to several neighbours as well as friends and relatives. One, who gave his name only as Daniel EU, told Spiegel he had warned the police Rüther might be suicidal after reading it.
“The man was disturbed, he had paranoia,” he said. But he added: “Just because a man threatens suicide, you can’t expect him to carry out an attack.
Other neighbours have said Rüther underwent a dramatic personality change in 2015, after suffering a back injury when he fell down the stairs.
The 48-year-old had a successful professional life as a furniture designer, and had four homes around Germany.
Police have ruled out initial suspicions the attacks may have been motivated by links to the German political far-Right. Rüther reportedly complained that people accused him of anti-immigrant sentiments, and one of his landlords was a known far-Right activist, but that appears to be the limit of the links.
Meanwhile, a senior MP from the nationalist Alternative for Germany party (AfD) is facing calls for her resignation over a series of tweets in which she appeared to attempt to make political capital out of the tragedy.
Before it was clear who was responsible, Beatrix von Storch assumed the incident was an Islamist terror attack and tweeted “We can do it” — an apparent reference to Angela Merkel’s slogan at the time of the migrant influx of 2015.
When it became clear the attack was not connected to migrants, she tweeted: “It does not have to be an Islamic attack. Of course not. And if a German patient turns out to be the culprit, then I say: we also have more than enough German murderers and crazy people. We do not need any more.”
“If Ms von Storch has even a spark of decency and reason, she should resign her seat in the German Bundestag,” Markus Blume, the chairman of Angela Merkel’s Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU) said.
“Anyone who tries to exploit an event like this the way Ms von Storch has done does not belong in the German parliament.”
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