Jehovah’s Witnesses community in Germany say members targeted in ‘horrific attack’
A shooting at a Jehovah’s Witness centre in the German city of Hamburg has left eight people dead, including the suspected gunman, police said on Friday morning.
“Eight people were fatally injured, apparently including the suspected perpetrator,” Hamburg police said, adding that several other people were injured in Thursday’s attack, “some seriously”.
There was no official word on a possible motive for the shooting on Thursday evening, which stunned Germany’s second biggest city and injured at least eight people according to local media.
Citing unnamed sources, der Spiegel reported that the suspect was believed to be a former Jehovah’s Witness aged between 30 and 40 who was not known to authorities as an extremist,
A spokesperson for the Hamburg police told Reuters they could not confirm the details but said there would be a press conference at midday local time (11am GMT).
The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, a former Hamburg mayor, described the shooting as “a brutal act of violence”, and the Jehovah’s Witnesses community in Germany said its members had been targeted in a “horrific attack”. David Semonian, a US-based spokesperson for Jehovah’s Witnesses, said members “worldwide grieve for the victims of this traumatic event”.
