Shooting rampage sparks terrorism probe

KRAKOW, Poland (AFP) — Poland on Sunday launched a terrorism probe as mourners brought candles and flowers to Krakow’s cordoned-off Main Market Square in tribute to six people killed by a gunman who authorities said was “fascinated by far-right ideologies.”

The 24-year-old Polish man opened fire apparently at random Saturday in the historic center of the country’s second city, in what Prime Minister Donald Tusk called an act of “terrorism.”

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned the shootings, expressing “his deepest condolences to the families of the victims, as well as to the Government and people of Poland,” his spokesperson said in a statement Sunday.

A 32-year-old British man and a 51-year-old Austrian woman were among the dead, the Malopolska region’s governor Krzysztof Kleczar told reporters. The four others killed were Polish.

Among the 15 wounded were nationals from Germany, Portugal and Russia, an interior ministry spokesperson said.

Three more bodies were found at the suspect’s home in Ostrowiec Swietokrzyski, around 150 kilometers northeast of Krakow. Police said they were his parents and his sister.

The gunman was wounded in a shootout with police and was in critical condition in hospital.

The National Prosecutor’s Office said it had launched a terrorism investigation.

“I’m absolutely devastated,” Weronika Filar, 27, a Krakow resident, told Agence France-Presse on Sunday.