German police have arrested a 54-year-old suspect believed to be the gunman behind a fatal shooting on a railway platform in the busy Frankfurt Central Station on Tuesday night.
The victim, a 27-year-old man, was standing on the station’s Platform 9 at around 9 pm (1900 GMT) on Tuesday when a gunman approached him from behind and fired several shots from a pistol, according to police.
After the 27-year-old fell to the ground, the suspect allegedly shot the victim twice more in the head before fleeing, said Dominik Mies, spokesman for the public prosecutor’s office in Frankfurt.
The victim died at the scene. The suspected gunman tried to flee but was captured by police shortly afterwards on a nearby platform.
A pistol believed to have been the weapon used in the shooting was discovered during a search of the station, which was closed to all train traffic for about 25 minutes on Tuesday night due to the police operation.
Prosecutors in Frankfurt said on Wednesday that both the suspect and the victim are Turkish nationals. A possible motive in the shooting remains unclear, and authorities said the investigation remains ongoing.
The 54-year-old suspected shooter is set to be brought before a judge on Wednesday, who will decide whether the man will remain in custody while police continue to investigate the shooting.
Mies said prosecutors have requested the suspect be held on urgent suspicion of murder.
“The investigation is still in its early stages, so please understand that we cannot yet say anything about the motive or the relationship between the suspect and the victim,” Mies told journalists.
Mies credited the courageous response of police officers at the station for the capture of the suspect, who tried to escape by boarding a train departing the station.
By Wednesday, travellers again swarmed the station and little indication remained of the fatal shooting just hours earlier.
“It’s really frightening that something like this happens in the middle of the railway station,” a student from Frankfurt who was on her way to Munich told dpa.
The student noted that the district around the Frankfurt Central Station has long been notorious for its seediness.
“The station has got worse,” a man who said he has been working at a bakery stall near Platform 9 for over 20 years told dpa. (dpa/NAN)
