A car attack in Berlin that killed one teacher and injured 14 children on a school trip left a second teacher with serious injuries, police have said.
The teachers and pupils were visiting the German capital from a state nearly five hours away when their trip “ended in a nightmare”, Olaf Scholz, the chancellor, said.
In all, 32 people were injured when a German-Armenian man drove a car into a crowd near a busy shopping district on Wednesday.
The man, 29, has a history of mental health problems and is “most likely” suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, officials said on Thursday.
He will be charged with murder and attempted murder and an application will be made to move him to a psychiatric facility, prosecutors added.
Police are working to establish a possible motive, but there is “evidence that it could be an intentional act of a suspected mentally ill man”, officers said.
The investigation is continuing in “all directions”, the police added.
Sebastian Buchner, the chief public prosecutor in Berlin, said investigators had ruled out any links to terrorism.
A passerby managed to quickly detain the man on Wednesday morning after he drove the car into a shop window.
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Man detained after Berlin crash
Posters about Turkey were found in the back of the car, which belongs to his sister.
Police looking at a possible link between the posters and the attack – Armenia has strained relations with Turkey – later confirmed that there was no connection.
The city’s mayor, Franziska Giffey, said investigators were trying to decipher the “confused statements” that the driver had made at times.
The attack happened at about 10.30am on Rankestrasse, a street near Breitscheidplatz in the city’s main shopping district, where 11 people were killed at a Christmas market in 2016.
Officers said seven pupils on the trip were treated for serious injuries in hospital and seven escaped with slight injuries.
Seventeen passersby were injured and received medical attention and 50 others were given psychological treatment.
Mr Scholz described the attack as a “horrific act” and said he hoped those caught up in the crash make a quick recovery.
He tweeted: “The trip of a school class from Hesse to Berlin ends in a nightmare. We think of the relatives of the dead and the injured, including many children. I wish all of them a speedy recovery.”
