Two killed in Muenster van incident, driver commits suicide

Two people were killed and 20 more were injured on Saturday when a man drove a van into a crowd in the western German city of Muenster before committing suicide, authorities said.  

In a joint statement, the police and the state prosecutor’s office said the victims were a 51-year-old woman and a 65-year-old man.  

They also confirmed that the man suspected of driving the van shot himself in the vehicle. State prosecutor Martin Botzenhardt said that the investigation so far led authorities to believe the assailant was “a 48-year-old man from Muenster.”   There were no leads as yet on a potential motive.

“Investigators are looking at the case from all possible angles,” Botzenhardt added.  

Earlier, the interior minister of the state of North Rhine Westphalia, Herbert Reul, said that “nothing indicates at the moment that there’s an Islamist background,” adding that the man was believed to be a German citizen.  According to dpa information, the suspected driver was possibly a mentally unstable lone actor.  

-Muenster, Germany (dpa)