BERLIN, June 25 (Xinhua) -- German police have arrested a truck driver on suspicion of being the mysterious "expressway sniper" who was responsible for at least 762 shootings at other road-users, the Federal Criminal Police announced (BKA) said on Tuesday.
The 57-year-old suspect, known as as Michael K and working as a local truck driver in Eifel region of south-west Germany, had confounded police with his weird serial shootings while driving his truck since 2008, which caused widespread panic on road traffic in Germany.
A number of firearms of different calibres and 1,300 rounds of ammunition were found in his home during the raid on Sunday, and the man had confessed the shootings, Federal police president Joerg Ziercke said, calling the case "unique in criminal history".
Despite the high frequence of shootings, the gunfires had resulted in no death reports. Two women drivers had been seriously wounded, including one who was hit in the throat while driving near Wurzburg in 2009 and the other who lost control of her car to crash into the median barrier.
"There has been a feeling of helplessness over the years," said Ingo Hodeas, the spokesman of the German Freight Forwarders and Logistics Association, adding that "we hope that it's over now."
The motorway shootings haave remained as a mystery to German police investigators since 2008. The reward for clue leading to the arrest of culprit was raised to as high as 100,000 euros after the shooter changed to weapons with more powerful caliber.
Police later installed hidden roadside cameras with number plate recognition and mobile phone networks to narrow the sphere of tracking down the suspect vehicles passing by the scene when new shootings were reported.
Police also resorted to ballistic investigations to find out that the shooting could have been fired from inside the cab of a truck, indicating that the offender might be a truck driver, according to local broadcaster Suedwestrundfunk.
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