Chainsaw attack suspect arrested in Switzerland

BERLIN -- Swiss police on Tuesday said they arrested the suspect who attacked and wounded five people with a chainsaw in northern Switzerland.

Police in Zurich canton (state), which neighbors Schaffhausen, said on Twitter Tuesday that the man was arrested in the town of Thalwil. They gave no further details and said police in Schaffhausen would hold a news conference on Wednesday morning.

Franz Wrousis, 50, is accused of attacking two employees of a health insurance company in Schaffhausen's old town on Monday morning. One of them was seriously hurt, though not in a life-threatening condition.

Authorities say that Wrousis, a client of health insurer CSS, targeted the agency, though the motive remains unclear.

Before the arrest, police warned that the suspect was "dangerous" but added "this case is not a terrorist act." They said it was unclear whether he still had the chainsaw.

Authorities previously said that Wrousis has two previous convictions for contraventions of weapons laws.

Prosecutor Peter Sticher said Wrousis had no fixed address but had previously registered himself as living in the southeastern Swiss canton of Graubuenden.

Cindy Beer, a spokesperson for the police department in Schaffhausen, in northern Switzerland near the German border, told SRF television that police were alerted at 10.39 a.m. Monday to the incident. She said "we can't say exactly what happened at this point."

She added: "We just know that a person wounded several people."

Swiss police told the Reuters news agency that five people were injured in the attack, including two who were seriously wounded. Local media said one man was taken to hospital with a severe head wound.

Schaffhausen is a city of about 36,000 people north of Zurich.