Munich attack planned for a year

German authorities say the teenager who shot nine people dead in Munich on Friday, began planning his attack a year ago.

Officials said the 18-year-old was an avid player of violent video games who purchased his weapon on the so called dark web.

He reportedly started planning the attack after visiting the site of a 2009 school shooting in southwest Germany.

“Based on investigations so far and an examination of the perpetrator’s electronic data and other documents, he had been preparing this act for a year. He had been planning it since last summer.An initial inspection of his electronic data lead us to the conclusion that he began to plan his own attack after he took an interest in the Winnenden attack and visited it last year”, said Robert Heimberger, President of the Bavarian State Office of Criminal Investigations.

A spokesperson for the Munich prosecutors’ office told journalists at a news conference that the gunman had spent two months as an inpatient at a mental care facility in 2015 and was afterwards treated as an outpatient.

However, there was no evidence of any political motivation.

German politicians have called for tighter controls on the sale of arms in the wake of the shooting.

Meanwhile German police arrested a 16-year old Afghan youth on Sunday on suspicion of a connection with the shootings.

The youth is under investigation for possibly having failed to report the plans of the gunman and may have played a role in a Facebook posting that invited people to a meeting near the Munich train station.