The Czech Republic will hold a day of mourning after 14 people were killed and 25 injured in a mass shooting – as police investigate the suspect’s links to another murder.
Police say the gunman opened fire on Thursday in the philosophy department at Charles University in Prague – where he was a student – in the worst shooting the country has ever seen.
Based on a search of his home, the gunman – named in Czech media as 24-year-old “David K” – is also suspected in the killing of another man and his two-month-old daughter last Friday.
Prague’s police chief, Martin Vondrasek, added the force believes the suspect killed his father earlier on Thursday in his hometown of Hostoun and that he had also been planning to kill himself.
President Petr Pavel expressed his “great sadness” in a statement, along with “helpless anger at the unnecessary loss of so many young lives”.
“I would like to express my sincere condolences to all relatives of the victims, to all who were at this tragic incident,” he added.
A police car drives past ambulances parked near the area of the shooting
The Czech government declared Saturday will be a national day of mourning to honour the victims, Prime Minister Petr Fiala said.
Previously, the nation’s worst mass shooting was in 2015, when a gunman opened fire in the town of Uhersky Brod, killing eight before ending his own life.
Police had “unconfirmed information from an account on a social network that he was supposedly inspired by one terrorist attack in Russia in the autumn of this year”, Mr Vondrasek said.
“It was a pre-mediated horrific act that started in the Kladno region and unfortunately ended here,” he said, adding the gunman was a legal holder of several firearms.