A German man who allegedly killed one person and injured three others in a knife attack at a train station in Bavaria Tuesday had prompted a police call-out over his erratic behavior two nights earlier, authorities say.
Witnesses told police that the attacker had shouted out “Allahu akbar” and “Infidels must die” as he carried out the attacks, German police officials said at a press conference Tuesday, adding that the suspect had admitted yelling the first statement.
But intelligence services said they knew of no link between him and Islamist networks. Authorities were weighing whether the 27-year-old suspect should be charged or committed for psychiatric treatment.
Terror on first train to Munich
The attack happened shortly before 5 a.m. local time (11 p.m. ET Monday) in Grafing, 23 miles (37 kilometers) east of Munich, officials said.
The first victim was a 50-year-old man waiting to board the first train bound for Munich, said Guenther Gietl, Deputy Chief of Police for Northern Upper Bavaria.
He died later in hospital.
Shortly afterward the suspect then allegedly stabbed a second victim at the station before stabbing two others, who were on bikes, at a traffic island nearby. Officials said one of the three was seriously injured, while the other two were stabbed multiple times.
The men’s ages were 58, 55 and 43.
Footage from the scene showed bloodied footprints leading out of a train carriage at the station, and small puddles of blood on the platform.
Suspect hails from Giessen
Gietl said police were quickly on the scene and arrested the suspect peacefully near the station. They recovered from him a knife with a 10-centimeter (4-inch) blade. He was barefoot at the time.
The suspect was from Giessen, in the German state of Hesse, some 370 kilometers (230 miles) northwest of Grafing.
He had been living on unemployment benefits for two years, and had previously been a carpenter, Gietl said.
On Sunday, the man had prompted a police call-out in Giessen after he was reported to be speaking in a confusing manner, officials said.
There was no evidence Sunday that the man posed a threat to himself or others, and officers recommended to him that he seek medical treatment, officials said.
Suspect’s account confusing
The following day, he took a train to Munich, in southern Germany, and went to check into a hotel but did not have enough money.
He spent time at the city’s train station, before recovering his bag from the hotel and taking the train to Grafing.
The man had no known connection to Grafing or Munich, and it was unclear why he had traveled to either place, said Petra Sandles, Deputy Chief of Police at the Bavarian Criminal Police Office.
Police were still interviewing the suspect Tuesday, officials said, but his answers were confusing and often incoherent.
State security services have joined the investigation to determine whether there was any political element to the attacks.
Grafing’s train station reopened Tuesday.
CNN’s Sebastian Shukla, Damien Ward, Alex Felton and Nadine Schmidt contributed to this report.
