Friends and relatives grieved after a shooting at a school in Baku yesterday. Twelve people were killed and several others were wounded before a shooter turned his gun on himself, police said.
(Aydin Mamedov/Reuters)
12 slain in Azerbaijan shooting
Man opens fire at prestigious school in Baku
Friends and relatives grieved after a shooting at a school in Baku yesterday. Twelve people were killed and several others were wounded before a shooter turned his gun on himself, police said.
(Aydin Mamedov/Reuters)
BAKU, Azerbaijan - A young man armed with an automatic pistol and clips of ammunition rampaged through a prestigious school in the Azerbaijani capital yesterday, killing 12 people and wounding others before killing himself as police closed in, the government said.
Little is known about the gunman and even less about the motive for the bloodshed that shook the faculty and students of the Azerbaijan State Oil Academy, a noted school whose graduates have included future presidents and tycoons.
The suspect, Farda Gadyrov, entered the Azerbaijan State Oil Academy and climbed five floors of the building, shooting everyone he met along the way, according to a joint statement from the Interior Ministry and state prosecutors.
Gadyrov, a Georgian citizen born in 1980, then shot and killed himself with the gun, a Makarov pistol, when he saw police approaching, the statement said.
It said he had three magazines of ammunition.
The statement gave no motive for the attack.
Television footage from inside the academy showed victims lying face down in the corridors, apparently dead, with blood seeping onto the floor.
Students carried others, apparently injured, out of the building, and weeping women hurried out.
"We were in an exam, we heard gunshots, we went out of the classroom in panic and saw a gunman opening fire on everyone. Three of my friends were shot," Bekir Belek, a Turkish student, told CNN-Turk television from a hospital. "Everywhere was covered in blood, all the corridors."
"We were trying to escape but had to return when my friends were shot; we took them to hospital," Belek said.
"There were bodies at each floor," said Ibrahim Kar, another Turkish student at the hospital.
Ilgar Mamedov, whose father, an employee of the academy, said the gunman walked the corridors of the academy taking aim at the head of anyone standing within range, and shooting.
If it was apparent a victim was not dead after a first shot, the attacker fired again, Mamedov said.
Azeri President Ilham Aliev offered condolences in a statement later yesterday, and said he would personally oversee the investigation.
© Copyright 2009 Globe Newspaper Company.
