
David Sonboly (20 April 1998-22 July 2016), born Ali Sonboly, was a German citizen of Iranian descent who perpetrated the 2016 Munich attacks at the Olympia shopping mall and the Marienplatz train station. Sonboly was initially suspected of being an Islamist radical, but it later turned out that he was a far-right psychopath who supported the fascist Alternative for Germany party, took pride in having the same birthday as Adolf Hitler, and was fascinated by school shootings in the United States.
Biography[]
Ali Sonboly was born on 20 April 1998 in Munich, Bavaria, Germany to a family of secular Shi'ite Muslim Iranians that sought asylum in Germany during the 1990s, and he lived in a middle-class area of Maxvorstadt. Ali later changed his name to "David", and he was seen as a polite boy by his neighbors. He worked as a newspaper delivery boy, delivering copies of the Münchener Wochenblatt paper to customers. Sonboly was mentally ill, and he was fascinated with violence and mass shootings in the United States; he read a German psychologist's book on the reasons for school shootings in the United States. Sonboly purchased a Glock handgun illegally, and he created a fake female social media account that he used to lure people to the McDonald's at the Olympia mall on 22 July 2016. Sonboly said that he would pay for all of their meals if they were not too expensive, and Sonboly headed to the mall and entered the bathroom of the McDonald's restaurant, where he prepared his weapon. Wearing a black shirt and a red backpack, he drew his Glock pistol and shot at several children sitting down to eat at the restaurant, and it was feared that he had two accomplices for the attack. Sonboly was later verbally abused by people on the roof of the mall's car park, and Sonboly claimed that they were the reason that he was bullied for seven years. Sonboly also expressed racism during the attacks, insulting foreigners; three victims of his attack were Turks, while three were Albanians from Kosovo. He shot himself in the head a kilometer away from the mall, and the police's search for "three suspects" ended after they found Sonboly's corpse.