Suspect arrested in Utrecht after three killed in tram shooting
Dutch police say they have arrested the suspect in a shooting on a tram in the city of Utrecht in which three people were killed.Several others were wounded following the shooting on a tram this Monday morning.
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Speaking on Monday evening Utrecht police chief Rob van Bree told a news conference that "We have just been informed that the suspect has been arrested."
Police had earlier said they were searching for 37-year-old Turkish-born suspect Gokmen Tanis and issued a picture of him.
The head of the Dutch national counter-terrorism service, Pieter-Jaap Aalbersberg, also confirmed "the arrest of the main suspect for the shooting".
The Dutch authorities have reportedly lowered the threat level in Utrecht from the maximum level of five as a result of the arrest.
Commuter killings
The gunman killed three people and wounded several others on a tram in the central Utrecht on Monday morning, sparking a manhunt that saw heavily-armed officers with sniffer dogs close-in on an apartment building close to the shooting.
Dutch authorities immediately raised the terror alert for the area to the maximum level, and the city's mayor had said a "terror motive" is the most likely theory.
Military police had been put on extra alert at Dutch airports and at key buildings across the country as the Utrecht manhunt got underway.
Disbelief and disgust
Speaking earlier today, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said "Our nation was hit by an attack in Utrecht," adding that "a terror motive is not excluded."
Rutte said that, throughout the country, "there is a mix of disbelief and disgust.
"If it is a terror attack then we have only one answer: our nation, democracy must be stronger that fanaticism and violence," he added.
The Utrecht attack comes only three days after 50 people were killed when a white nationalist opened fire at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand during Friday prayers.
There has been no immediate indication of any link between the two events.
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