Death Toll Rises After Tram Shooting In The Netherlands

The death toll after a tram shooting in the Netherlands has risen to four after a 74-year-old man who was seriously wounded succumbed to his injuries, Dutch prosecutors said Thursday.

Prosecutors plan to adjust charges against accused gunman Gokmen Tanis to four counts of murder or manslaughter, carried out with terrorist intent, reported Channel NewsAsia.

Authorities went on a manhunt for Tanis, a 37-year-old Turkish-born man, after he fatally shot three people and injured five others in the Dutch city of Utrecht on March 18. The first three victims were a 19-year-old woman, a 28-year-old man and a 49-year-old father. Tanis reportedly admitted guilt on the three charges in relation to their deaths.

Authorities linked the shooting to possible terrorist motives pretty quickly.

“We are working on the assumption of a terrorist motive,” Utrecht Mayor Jan van Zanen said March 18. “We think there is just one perpetrator, but we cannot exclude the possibly of there being several perpetrators.”

The shooting occurred just days after the deadly mosque shootings in Christchurch, New Zealand March 15. All mosques in Utrecht were evacuated by authorities and security was upped at other mosques around the Netherlands, reported The Times. Authorities did not say whether the evacuations were due to a specific threat or were done to be extra careful after Christchurch.

Utrecht is a city of about 330,000 people located 25 miles from the Netherlands’ capital, Amsterdam.