The 21-year-old gunman who killed nine students and a teacher at his former high school in Austria had carefully planned the seven-minute attack. Austrian investigators also said on June 12 that the attacker had played many online games involving shooting and killing.
Tuesday's attack on a high school in Graz ended after a former student killed himself.
Investigators have so far failed to uncover a motive, said the head of police investigators, Michael Lohnegger, who described the attacker as a "very introverted" man who had lived with his mother in a village on the outskirts of Graz.
"We discovered that he had a great passion for playing online murder games," Lohnegger said.
The attacker, who had left school three years ago without completing his studies and whom authorities have not named so far, had carefully planned the attack, according to a handwritten letter found in his home, he added.
This note "shows that the entire course of events was planned by the attacker down to the smallest detail," Lohnegger said.
Lohnegger added that the teacher he killed was one of his former teachers, while according to investigations so far "he had no personal connection to the students" he shot.
Shortly before 10:00 a.m. on Tuesday, the attacker entered the Dreierschuetzengasse high school through the main entrance. He had a bag containing a pistol, a rifle and ammunition. At the time of the attack, according to Lohnegger, there were up to 400 students in the school.
The attacker then went to the third floor – the highest floor of the school – entered a toilet, armed himself with a firearm and a hunting knife, and then started shooting.
"At 9:57 a.m., he started shooting at the school and the shooting lasted for nearly seven minutes," Lohnegger said.
"First he went to the second floor, where he opened fire on people in the school. Then, he went up to the third floor. There, he started shooting at a closed door of a classroom and then started shooting indiscriminately at people inside this classroom," he added.
Then, according to investigators, the attacker returned to the bathroom and killed himself, shortly before police arrived at the school.
The attacker, who had obtained a weapons permit after undergoing psychological evaluations in March, had purchased the rifle he used in the attack from a dealer in Graz in April and the pistol in another city in May, Lohnegger said.
At the age of 18, the attacker was refused by authorities to perform compulsory military service after undergoing psychological and physical tests which found he was not psychologically "fit" to serve in the army, Defense Ministry spokesman Michael Bauer said in a response to AFP.
After the attack, Austria declared three days of mourning and a debate has begun in the country over gun laws.
During the raids on the attacker's home, police also found a "non-functional" homemade bomb, a suicide note and a video message he had left for his mother./ REL (A2 Televizion)
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