Prosecutor: Driver in fatal Berlin crash seems mentally ill

By GEIR MOULSON
Associated Press

BERLIN (AP) — German prosecutors say a man accused of driving into a school group in Berlin appears to have a history of mental illness. Prosecutor Sebastian Buechner said Thursday there was no sign of a terrorist motive for what appeared to have been a deliberate act. A court ordered the man placed in a secure psychiatric hospital. He faces preliminary charges of murder and attempted murder. Buechner said investigators found medications when they searched the man’s apartment and “a great deal speaks for paranoid schizophrenia” as the suspect’s diagnosis. Police have identified the driver as a 29-year-old German-Armenian. He used his sister’s car when he drove into the pedestrians, killing a teacher and injuring 31 people on Wednesday.