German police said Friday an axe-wielding attacker who wounded nine people in a bloody rampage at a railway station was mentally ill and may have hoped police would shoot him dead. The 36-year-old Kosovan national had been diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic with a history of high anxiety and self-harm, police said, ruling out a terrorist motive.
Instead, they suggested he might have carried out the attack at the main railway station in western city Duesseldorf fully prepared to end his own life. The suspect was taken into custody after jumping off a bridge and was being treated in hospital with fractures and other injuries.
News site Spiegel Online identified him as Fatmir H., and police said he had come to Germany in 2009 and had received residency rights "for humanitarian reasons".
The man sparked panic when he got off a commuter train in Duesseldorf around 2000 GMT Thursday and began swinging an axe at passengers, hitting his first victim from behind.