Turkey expects Germany to show 'maximum effort' to solve case after extremist kills 9

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Turkish Presidential spokesperson İbrahim Kalın said that Ankara expects German authorities to show maximum effort to solve the case into the killing of nine people, including five Turkish nationals.

"We expect German authorities to show maximum effort to enlighten this case," Kalın said on Twitter, while calling racism a "collective cancer."

A far-right extremist shot nine people dead in two shisha bars in an overnight rampage in Hanau, police believe, returning home and killing himself.

Xenophobic motive

The interior minister of the German state of Hesse said on Feb. 20 that there was a xenophobic motive to the shooting and said the suspected perpetrator and his mother had been found dead with shot wounds at his home.

Peter Beuth said investigations were ongoing as to whether there were any letters of confession - on which newspaper Bild has reported. He added that he could not say who was visiting the shisha bars at the time of attack.

Beuth said the perpetrator was in legal possession of arms and was a sports marksman.

Earlier, federal prosecutors said they had taken charge of investigations into the attack due to indications it had an extremist motive.

German daily Bild said the suspect was 43-year-old Tobias R., a German citizen, and that ammunition and gun magazines were found in the vehicle. He had a firearms hunting licence, it added.

Kurds among victims

Some of the victims of the shooting rampage were of Kurdish descent, Bild said, adding that the victims included five young people, including a woman.

Bild said without citing a source that the suspect also left a video claiming responsibility.

Commenting on the issue, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said, "If European countries fail to stop racism, it becomes very dangerous."

Can-Luca Frisenna, whose father and brother run one of the two bars attacked, said he rushed there after learning about the shooting.

"I heard my father was affected and my little brother, they run the kiosk, I don't have much to do with it," said Frisenna. "But then I saw them both - they were horrified and they were crying and everything. So everyone was shocked."

At one of the bars early on Feb. 20, forensics police in white overalls inspected the crime scene, cordoned off close to Hanau's historic market place. Nearby, traffic flowed as normal and commuters waited for buses.

Government spokesman Steffen Seibert tweeted: "Deep sympathy goes out to the families concerned, who are mourning the loss of their dead. With the injured, we hope they will soon recover."

Last October, an anti-Semitic gunman who denounced Jews opened fire outside a German synagogue on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish year, and killed two people as he livestreamed his attack.