Prague shooter killed man and baby in 'random' attack days before atrocity

22 December 2023 , 06:42

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The suspected shooter is pictured on a balcony (Image: Twitter)

The student who unleashed terror on Prague yesterday had killed a man and his newborn baby in a "random" attack at a forest days prior.

David Kozak, a lone gunman, shot dead 14 people and injured 25 others in a sickening rampage at his university, Charles University in downtown Prague. Authorities in the city say the atrocity is the Czech Republic’s worst mass shooting.

Police also said Kozak is suspected in the killing a dad and his two-month-old daughter at a forest in the east of Prague just one week ago. A search of the 24-year-old student's home led to police to believe this is the case. More than 250 police officers were sent to search the area and a helicopter with thermal imaging was used to scour the woodland area, but the gunman was never found.

The forest near Klanovicky is just a 30-minute drive from the university. However, police understand the victims of the double killing days ago were not known to Kozak and they were "completely randomly selected".

Speaking yesterday, police spokesman Martin Vondráček said: "As far as Klanovicky is concerned, it is not known that the victims were in any way connected to the perpetrator. I am convinced that the victims were completely randomly selected by a person without any criminal history.

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"We are working very seriously with the fact that the attacker from the Faculty of Philosophy is also responsible for the two victims from the end of last week in Klanovicky."

It is suspected David Kozak was linked to other deaths (CZECH POLICE/UNPIXS)

Images shared on social media show crowds fleeing in horror after bullets were heard (@nexta_tv/Twitter)

At the time of the killing in the woodland, police spokesman Jan Rybanský told iDNES.cz. : "The case is being worked on by a team of several dozen of the most experienced criminologists, who were also reinforced by colleagues from the Office of the Criminal Police Service and Investigations of the Police Presidium."

Kozak was discovered dead at the scene of yesterday's massacre at the Arts faculty of the university. He had randomly shot people from the balcony of the building, and had a huge arsenal of weapons and ammunition with him. It has since emerged that, in the lead up to his killing spree, Kozak kept a diary in Russian on messaging app Telegram, writing in one chilling post: "I want to do a school shooting and possibly suicide."

Emergency services are pictured by a cordon in the Czech Republic's capital (Getty Images)

Pictures show the gunman, dressed in black, aiming a rifle at people below on the campus. Terrified students and tourists were seen fleeing while others crouched beneath a window ledge on the high building.

There are fears that tourists could be among those killed or the 25 injured in today's shooting, with police working to identify the victims and saying they will contact embassies with updates in the event of foreign nationals being affected in the atrocity. Authorities stress, though, the death toll could have been greater. Police have sealed off the square and the area adjacent to the university building, which is located in a busy part of town that has a popular street leading tourists to Old Town Square.

Mr Vondráček continued: "There was a large quantity of ammunition and if the police hadn't entered the building in time, the perpetrator wouldn't have been dead on the roof and there would have been a lot more victims."

Bradley Jolly