German police kill suspect in exchange of fire near Israeli consulate in Munich
German police have shot a man dead in an exchange of fire near the Israeli consulate and a Nazi history museum in Munich, Reuters reports quoting state Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann.
“Due to the intervention of the police, the perpetrator was stopped,” Herrmann told reporters. A police spokesperson in the Bavarian state capital said the man had a “long-barrelled gun” that proved to be an old rifle.
The incident occurred on the anniversary of the 1972 attack at the Munich Olympics in which Palestinian militants murdered 11 Israeli athletes. The motive of the gunman in Thursday’s incident was not immediately known, but Herrmann said police would try to clarify whether it had any link to the anniversary.
The suspect was a teenage Austrian national who had recently travelled to Germany and lived in Austria’s Salzburg area near the border with Bavaria, The Standard newspaper and Spiegel news outlet reported.
The Israeli foreign ministry said the consulate was closed on Thursday for a commemoration of that massacre and no one from the consulate staff was injured in the incident.
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