Police in Germany were on Sunday morning trying to make sense of why a 48-year-old local man with no known links to terrorism drove a minivan into a crowded open-air restaurant terrace, killing two people before shooting himself dead.

Although the perpetrator has not been officially named, he has been identified locally as Jens R, a German citizen born about an hour south of the city of Münster, where the attack took place.

“So far there are no indications of a possible motive. The investigation is being conducted at full speed and in all directions,” Martin Botzenhardt of the local prosecutor’s office said.

Authorities are believed to have all but ruled out Islamist extremism as a motive, after establishing Jens R had no links to the Islamist scene.

Instead they are said to be working on the theory the attack may have been a form of “extended” suicide.