A man was arrested after injuring seven people with an axe at Düsseldorf’s main train station on Thursday night, police have said.

In a statement, they described the man as a 36-year-old from the former Yugoslavia who apparently had mental health problems. Police said three of the victims were seriously injured, with the others suffering minor injuries. The suspect was also injured.

Police said there was no indication of a terrorist motive behind the attack.



The station remained closed while crime scene specialists carried out their work but police are not searching for any other attackers.

They are investigating reports that the man entered the overground number 28 railway line of the Rhein-Ruhr S-Bahn network on Thursday at about 8.50pm local time and started to attack passengers, later turning on passersby on a platform.

After fleeing across the tracks, the man jumped off a railway bridge, reportedly sustaining injuries. He was arrested soon afterwards, still carrying a weapon.

Germany is on edge after a string of attacks in recent months - many carried out by people with mental health problems - culminating in a truck attack on a Berlin Christmas market claimed by Isis.

Police have been unable to interview the Düsseldorf attacker as his injuries from jumping off the bridge were too severe, according to local news agency DPA. A police spokesman told Agence France-Presse on Friday morning that they had ruled out an Islamic fundamentalist motive for the attack.

The local newspaper Rheinische Post quoted one witness, Tobias Schneeberger, 30, who said the assailant had got off the S28 overground at the station and run up and down the platform carrying a weapon, described in various reports as an axe. Other reports described the weapon as a hatchet.

Another witness told Bild newspaper: “I saw the man. There was blood on the floor, I think I saw two bodies on the tracks.”