Police today revealed a note in the Utrecht tram gunman’s getaway car was leading them to “seriously” consider terrorism as a possible motive.
Three people, including snack bar worker Roos Verschuur, 19, and 49-year-old football coach Rinke Terpstra, were killed when a gunman opened fire yesterday afternoon before being captured after a city-wide manhunt.
Dutch police said another 28-year-old man also died, while two woman, aged 20 and 21, and a 74-year-old man were seriously injured. Four others suffered minor injuries in the melee.
Turkish-born Gokmen Tanis, 37, was arrested along with two other men aged 23 and 27 after a number of police searches at homes across the city.
They were still being questioned today. Tanis’s father, Mehmet Tanis, told Turkish news agency Anadolu his son fired at a relative because of “family reasons”.
However, a Dutch police spokesman said today: “The investigation has so far revealed no relationship between the main suspect and the victims. A firearm was found during his arrest.
“So far, a terrorist motive has been seriously taken into account. Among other things, a letter found in the flight car and the nature of the fact give cause for this. Other motives are not excluded, they are also being investigated.”
Police spokesman Bernhard Jens said police were “not 100 per cent sure” about the motive. “It could still be a domestic dispute,” he said.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan also said the Turkish intelligence service was investigating the possible motives.
Justice minister Ferd Grapperhaus said the attacker “was known” to authorities and had a criminal record, but would not elaborate.
He was described by a former girlfriend as a “crazy drug user...not a terrorist but a psychopath”.
There were reports that Tanis may once have fought in Chechnya.
He was arrested during a raid on a building a few miles from the 24 Oktoberplein tram stop where the shooting took place yesterday morning.
Dutch authorities reduced the threat level in the city back to four out of five following his arrest.
Meanwhile, tributes were today being paid to the victims. Married father-of-three Mr Terpstra worked as a youth coach at the Utrecht football club Desto which voiced its “great dismay and astonishment”.
“Our compassion goes first and foremost to his wife and children. He has been involved with Desto for a long time,” it said.
A colleague of Ms Verschuur told newspaper Algemeen Dagblad: “The death of our employee hit us extremely hard. She was only 19. There are no words for this.”
