Autobahn shooter had road rage
June 25, 2013
Jörg Ziercke, the president of Germany's Federal Criminal Police Office, said in a press conference on Tuesday that the truck driver from North-Rhine Westphalia was motivated by "anger and frustration on the road."
The man considered the shootings a form of self justice and saw the situation on Germany's Autobahn as a form of war, said the chief public prosecutor from Würzburg, Dietrich Geuder.
He was a "frustrated loner with a hatred for people," Geuder said.
Most wanted criminal
Police arrested the 57-year-old in his home in the west German rural Eifel region on Sunday, seizing 1,300 rounds of ammunition and several firearms, one of which has meanwhile been identified as the weapon used in the shootings.
His capture brings to an end the search for one of Germany's most wanted criminals.
Starting in 2008, shots were fired at trucks loaded with cars travelling along the Autobahn, mainly in western and southern Germany. According to investigators the shots were fired from a vehicle driving at oncoming traffic.
Although the shooter did not seem to be targeting drivers, in one of the shootings, a woman driving a car was seriously injured in 2009 when a bullet hit her neck.
Roads under surveillance
Ninety police officers from all over Germany had been working to solve the case.
In November 2012, authorities had quadrupled a reward for information on the shootings to 100,000 euros ($131,000), saying that the assailant or assailants had started using more dangerous larger-caliber weapons.
"Rarely have we had an investigation with so many offenses, but at the same time so few clues," said Ziercke.
Surveillance cameras alongside German motorways were used to pinpoint the license plate of the alleged shooter's vehicle. The suspect was then personally observed by police and his cell phone was tapped.
The procedure of using surveillance cameras to read license plates has fuelled an ongoing discussion on privacy and data protection in Germany.
rg,dr/slk (dpa, AP)