A 42-year-old employee killed two workmates and wounded seven when he opened fire in a Swiss factory, rocking the small community where the plant is located.
Police said that the gunman, who also died, had worked for more than 10 years at the Kronospan wood panel plant in Menznau, near Lucerne in central Switzerland.
He had no record of making trouble, police and factory officials said, but workmates quoted by Swiss media said he may have been suffering from mental problems since last year.
Three people were killed in a shooting at a Swiss wood panel plant. Photo: AFP
The man, who was not identified by name, reportedly launched his assault with a handgun at around 9:00 am (1900 AEST) in the plant's canteen.
Police said that he appeared to have aimed deliberately at his victims, rather than spraying shots at random.
Of the seven wounded, six were in a serious condition.
Three helicopters from the Swiss emergency service REGA evacuated four of the wounded to neighbouring hospitals, a spokesman said.
Police would not say how the shooter died and added they were waiting for the results of an autopsy.
"We still don't know what his motives were," Lucerne's police chief Daniel Bussmann told reporters.
Some Swiss media claimed the gunman had fallen out with his employers, with local newspaper Willisauerer Bote noting that Kronospan had last week announced it was cutting production.
Owned by Austrian group Kronospan, the factory is the top employer in Menznau, giving jobs to about 400 people in the community of almost 2600.
Kronospan underlined that the production cutback was the result of a wood shortage due to bad weather, and that there had been no threat to jobs.
Capozzo said the gunman was known as a very calm individual. "We can't understand what happened," he said.
The national daily Blick said the gunman was a family man who worked as a machine operator at the plant.
The regional newspaper Luzerner Zeitung quoted an unnamed colleague as saying that the man's behaviour over recent months suggested he was having mental problems.
"He changed last year. He talked to himself, or to people who weren't there. And he'd change the subject completely in mid-conversation, so you could barely talk to him any more," the colleague said.
AFP
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/three-dead-seven-hurt-in-swiss-shooting-20130228-2f6zt.html#ixzz2MAkbOVjr
http://www.smh.com.au/world/three-dead-seven-hurt-in-swiss-shooting-20130228-2f6zt.html
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