Gun owner arrested after factory shooting

Investigation of the factory shooting uncovered the owner of the murder weapon Keystone

The gun used in Wednesday's mass shooting at a timber plant outside Lucerne was a Sphinx AT 380 registered to the suspect’s brother, who was arrested Friday pending further investigation, the Lucerne prosecutor’s office confirmed on Saturday.

Four people have died and six were injured in the shooting in Menznau, which took place on the premises of the plant where the suspect had worked for more than 15 years. The gunman, a 42-year-old Swiss, is among the dead.

How the gun came into the gunman’s possession, and whether he killed himself with it after firing at selected coworkers, is under investigation. He was already dead when police arrived on the scene at the Kronospan plant on Wednesday morning.

   

A spokesman for the investigating authorities said the shooting took place over two to three minutes, at around 9am. The dead and injured were found on the factory floor, in a corridor and in the company’s canteen.

Following the shooting, Kronospan chief executive Mauro Capozzo said the suspected assailant, who was still with the company at the time of the shooting, was “a quiet man. No other incidents involving him are known”. He added that the company had not laid off any employees recently.

However, the Luzern police stated that the suspect – a native of Kosovo who had come to Switzerland as an asylum seeker in 1991 and later was granted citizenship – had a criminal record and had been sentenced for robbery in 1998.

The company partially resumed operations again on Friday. The around 400 employees had access to a Care team. The canteen where the shootings took place will be torn down, the company announced.