23rd July, 2016
Lowering the flags is “an expression of sympathy following the abhorrent act of violence,” the Interior Ministry said.
An 18-year-old German-Iranian gunman, who apparently acted alone, opened fire near a busy shopping mall in Munich on Friday evening, killing nine people in the third attack on civilians in Western Europe in eight days.
As authorities sought to piece together the circumstances of an attack behind which they had found no immediate evidence of an Islamist motive, Munich police said they would hold a 0930 GMT news conference.
Chancellor Angela Merkel is due to meet her chief of staff Peter Altmaier, Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere and intelligence officials to review the incident.
She will make a statement at 1230 GMT, her office said.
The pistol-wielding attacker, identified by Munich police chief Hubertus Andrae as a dual national from Munich, was later found dead of a suspected self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Authorities said it was too early to say whether it was a terrorist attack but that the shooter was believed to have staged the attack alone, opening fire in a fast food restaurant before moving to the mall.
In addition to determining the motive, police will have to find out how the 18-year-old got the firearm used in the attack in a country whose gun control system is described by the U.S. Congress Library as being “among the most stringent in Europe”.
The gunman, whose body was found on a side street near the mall, was not identified but Andrae said he was not previously known to police.
Police commandos, armed with night vision equipment and dogs, raided an apartment in the Munich neighbourhood of Maxvorstadt early on Saturday where the German newspaper Bild said the gunman lived with his parents.