The man who drove a vehicle into a group of people sitting outside a restaurant in Germany yesterday was known to police.
He shot himself dead after killing two people and injuring 20 when he drove a camper van into people seated at tables outside the Grosser Kiepenkerl eatery in the city of Muenster.
Investigators named the victims as a 51-year-old woman from the Lueneburg area in northern Germany and a 65-year-old man from the Borken area near Muenster.
Flowers, candles and signs were left by people at the scene.
The city’s senior public prosecutor said the 48-year-old perpetrator, who has not been named, had previously faced charges for harassment, property damage and fraud.
Elke Adomeit told reporters the Muenster authorities had three criminal proceedings against him while there was a further charge against him with the Ansbach prosecutor.
All the accusations were between 2015 and 2016 and all charges were dropped.
Ms Adomeit went on to say there was no indication the perpetrator had any political motives for the attack.
Police are searching four different apartments owned by the man.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in a statement she was "deeply shaken" after the attack.
Interior Minister Horst Seehofer said he was appalled and that the attack was "outside of the imagination".
Yesterday's attack in Muenster came a year to the day of a truck attack in Stockholm in which a suspected Islamist militant sympathiser killed five people.
French President Emmanuel Macron said on Twitter his thoughts were with the victims and that France shared in Germany’s suffering.
The White House issued a statement sending US President Donald Trump’s "thoughts and prayers" to the families of those killed.
In a separate development, authorities in Germany’s capital Berlin arrested six people who they say planned to carry out a "violent crime" at the city’s half marathon.
Police and prosecutors said because of the Muenster attack, they decided to mount raids on the suspects who are aged between 18 and 21.
Authorities searched flats and two vehicles and said the investigation is still ongoing.
The Berlin half marathon went ahead early on Sunday morning with 630 police officers deployed to guard the race and the crowds who attended.
