Prague mass shooting: What do we know so far?
Police say the body of the gunman's father was found in a village outside the Czech capital around three hours before the shooting in a university building in the centre of the city.
Friday 22 December 2023 19:09, UK
New details about the Prague mass shooting in which a gunman also died have been revealed by police.
Bodycam footage has been released, showing officers storming a building at Charles University and members of the public fleeing on Thursday.
The suspect - named as 24-year-old David Kozak - opened fire in the philosophy department of the university, where he was a student.
Fourteen people were killed, including Lenka Hlavkova, director of the Institute of Music Science FF UK, the university said, and Lucie Spindlerova, a proofreader at the Lidovky newspaper, the paper said.
On Friday, the Finnish studies department at the University of Greifswald in Germany named professor Jan Dlask as a victim of the attack.
"In spite of all our hopes, our fears have been realised. Our colleague and friend Jan Dlask is one of the victims of this senseless act," they said in a post on social media.
A further 25 were injured, including three foreign nationals - two from Saudi Arabia and one from the Netherlands.
A perimeter was put in place around the university building, officers said at a press conference.
At one point the gunman shot and injured three people outside the building with a long-range weapon and the police fired back.
As the police approached his location, he was armed with a shotgun and killed himself, authorities said.
Officers found his body while searching the building.
"Piles of ammunition - unbelievable quantities" were found at the scene, a police official said.
Links to other murders
Police president Martin Vondrasek said officers received a report at 12.20pm on Thursday that a 24-year-old man from the village of Hostoun was travelling to Prague, having stated that he "wanted to take his own life".
At 12.45pm, the body of a man, identified as the gunman's father, was discovered at a property in the village - which is to the west of the Czech capital.
Czech media reported that the suspect had previously posted on social media site Telegram saying he "always wanted to kill".
He is also reported to have posted about a school shooting in Russia earlier this year.
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Mr Vondrasek said investigators were looking at whether the gunman had been "inspired" by a previous mass shooting.
"We have very fresh unconfirmed information from an account on a social network that he was supposedly inspired by one terrorist attack in Russia in the autumn of this year," Mr Vondrasek told reporters
He also said, based on a search of the suspect's home, that the gunman was suspected in the killing of a man and his two-month-old daughter in the east of Prague earlier this month.
On Friday, Czech police confirmed a ballistics match between a weapon found at the home of Kozak and the weapon used in the east Prague shooting.
Building evacuated as police searched for student
Following the discovery of the father's body, police ordered the evacuation of one of the university buildings, where the gunman was due to have a lecture at 2pm on Thursday.
According to Mr Vondrasek, the evacuation was completed at 2.22pm, and after this, police continued to search for the student.
However, at 2.59pm, gunshots were reported in another university building, the Charles University Faculty of Arts near Jan Palach Square.
According to the Czech interior minister, Vit Rakusan, armed police were at the scene within 12 minutes.
By 3.20pm, the shooter's body was found, having suffered "devastating injuries".
What do we know about the gunman?
The gunman's name has not been released by police - though he has been named in Czech media as David Kozak.
Though police have not revealed the name, the one reported by Czech media matches a police search report.
Police have described the suspect as a high-achieving student with no prior criminal record, though he is also suspected of killing another man and his two-month-old daughter last Friday.
They say he was the legal owner of several guns.
Police say the gunman acted alone, while Mr Rakusan said investigators do not suspect a link to any extremist ideology or groups.