The suspected gunman being sought in connection to a shooting in the Dutch city of Utrecht that left three people dead and five injured was arrested hours after the shooting, police said.
Dutch police had been searching for 37-year-old Gokmen Tanis, who was born in Turkey, in connection with the possible terrorist attack, reported BBC Monday.
As reported in the press conference: The police arrested a man for his involvement in the shooting at the #24oktoberplein in #Utrecht.
— Politie Utrecht (@PolitieUtrecht) March 18, 2019
Dutch authorities raised the threat alert to the highest level in Utrecht and surrounding areas before the suspect was found, reported NBC News. (RELATED: Dutch Police Searching For Turkish Man After Tram Shooting Leaves 3 Dead, 5 Injured)
Utrecht’s mayor, Jan van Zanen, called Tanis a suspect and said three of the injured have serious wounds.
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte (L) and Right, Justice and Security Minister Ferd Grapperhaus speak to the press at the Ministry of Justice and Security in The Hague, on March 18, 2019 following a shooting in a tram in Utrecht. (LEX VAN LIESHOUT/AFP/Getty Images)
Policemen are at work on March 18, 2019 in Utrecht, near a tram where a gunman opened fire killing at least three persons and wounding several in what officials said was a possible terrorist incident. (JOHN THYS/AFP/Getty Images)
“We are working on the assumption of a terrorist motive,” van Zanen said. “We think there is just one perpetrator, but we cannot exclude the possibly of there being several perpetrators.”
Authorities evacuated all mosques in Utrecht and security was upped at other mosques around the Netherlands, reported The New York Times. Authorities did not say whether the evacuations were due to a specific threat or were done to be extra careful after the deadly mosque shootings in Christchurch, New Zealand, on Friday.
Utrecht is a city of about 330,000 people located 25 miles from the Netherlands’ capital, Amsterdam.
The Netherlands had a rocky 2018, during which seven men were arrested for conspiring to commit a major terrorist attack in the country and an Afghan man stabbed two Americans in a railway station.
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