AMSTERDAM — A failed relationship led to the shooting of four people in a shopping complex in Tiel on Thursday evening. Three of the victims –  including the suspected gunman – died at the scene. The fourth died of her wounds on Friday.

Two men, aged 31 and 32, and a woman, 29 died at the scene. A second woman, aged 26, was admitted to hospital in a critical condition after a shooting near an Aldi supermarket in the central Dutch city Tiel on Thursday night. She died later. All four are native Dutch from the Betuwe region.

News agency ANP said the 31-year-old man, suspected of shooting the others before killing himself, was a member of a gun club and owned a legal firearm.

He had been in a relationship with the 29-year-old woman but they broke up earlier this year, leading to police mediation over the division of their possessions, a police spokesman said on Friday.

Witnesses claim the shooting occurred in the local Aldi supermarket at 7.30pm on Thursday, but an Aldi lawyer denied this and said it occurred in the shopping centre where the supermarket is located. All four victims were adults, but their identities have not yet been released.

Eye witnesses said a male victim was seen dead at the entrance to the supermarket and a second male victim was located not far away. The other two victims were found in nearby shops.

The public shooting attracted a large number of people to the small shopping complex Albrecht, located on the Kwelkade at the edge of a suburban neighbourhood. Police concealed the victims from public view with plastic screening, news agency ANP reported.

Police now appear to believe the shooting was connected to the failed relationship.

Rumours on the street indicated that the shooting was the result of an argument, in which one of the involved people drew a gun and started shooting. One man also claims the culprit was a friend of his from the nearby town Dodewaard.

The man claimed his friend had invited him to accompany him to a model-building store at the shopping centre.

The Nijmegen man said his 31-year-old friend knew that his former girlfriend would also be there. The alleged culprit and woman, aged 29, were previously engaged, but a fight between them had erupted and their marriage was called off.

[Copyright Expatica News 2004]

Subject: Dutch news