GERMANY: Politicians began a war of words yesterday, blaming each other for the Erfurt school shootings as Germany remembered the victims in a minute's silence.
Appeals from church leaders not to politicise the tragedy went unheeded, making it certain that law and order will loom large on the campaign trail ahead of September's general election.
With the Gutenberg school in Erfurt closed until September, psychologists and counsellors joined students in the town hall to discuss Friday's massacre of 13 teachers, two fellow students and a policeman.
It remains unclear whether some students will have to resit the state exams they were writing at the time of the shooting.
Police said yesterday Robert Steinhäuser, the 19-year-old former student responsible, planned the attack in "minute detail" and then killed himself.
"According to witness statements, Steinhäuser informed certain people by mobile phone text messages not to go to school on this day," said Mr Rainer Grube, the chief of police in Erfurt.
Politicians faced growing calls to raise the legal age to own a gun after reports that Steinhäuser held permits for four weapons.
Mr Otto Schily, the Interior Minister, said he wanted to see the minimum age for a gun permit raised from 18 to 21 years.
He hit back at claims from the opposition conservatives that the government had delayed legislation to ban violent videos and computer games, similar to those found in Steinhäuser's bedroom.
Mr Schily said the allegation was "shameless and indecent", adding that conservative politicians were the ones delaying the legislation.
Mr Edmund Stoiber, the Bavarian prime minister who hopes to unseat the Chancellor, Mr Gerhard Schröder, in September, called for a "debate on violence in society" and a ban on violent videos.
Mr Schröder announced he wouldmeet the heads of the main networks on Thursday to discuss curbing violence on television.
Students of the Gutenberg school criticised media coverage of the tragedy in a gathering in Erfurt's church plaza yesterday.
"\ ran along the motto: 'Whoever cries the most gets on television.' We came across like animals in a zoo," shouted Mr Stefan Walluhn (20) to hundreds of applauding students.
Meanwhile, state exams in a school in Lower Saxony were held under police protection yesterday after the school received an anonymous suicide note from a student.
"I will not go alone, but will take many innocent students with me to a tragic death," wrote the author of the letter, posted a day before Friday's massacre.
AFP adds: A 17-year-old pupil went on a rampage at a school in the Bosnian Serb entity Republika Srpska yesterday, killing one teacher before turning the gun on himself. He shot dead a history teacher, Mr Stanimir Reljic (53), and injured a mathematics teacher.
