GERMANY: The father of the gunman who killed 16 people in an Erfurt school has come to the defence of Mr Rainer Heise (60), the teacher praised for stopping the shootings but who is now a pariah in the town.
Mr Heise, the art and history teacher at the Gutenberg school, gave dozens of interviews in the hours after the shootings telling how he locked Robert Steinhäuser (19) into a storeroom.
But the man dubbed "the reluctant hero of Erfurt" by the media now says his life is now a daily hell. Mr Heise says he has received telephone death threats, is spat on when he goes out and was once called a "bloodthirsty pig" on the street.
Even his boss, school principal, Ms Christiane Alt, has little good to say about him, saying: "Sometimes I think he could have been a quieter hero." Yesterday Mr Günther Steinhäuser, whose son killed 16 people before shooting himself, begged the people of Erfurt to leave Mr Heise in peace.
"Please, please, not another victim. The man is afraid for his life. We mustn't forget that," said Mr Steinhäuser, who is seriously ill.
Mr Rainer Grube, the Erfurt police chief, said there are "clear contradictions" surrounding Mr Heise's testimony.
Mr Heise said he challenged Steinhäuser when they came face-to-face saying: "You can shoot me but look me in the eye when you do it." He said he pushed his former student into a storeroom and locked the door moments after Steinhäuser laid down one of his two guns.
Police who found both weapons on the gunman's body in the storeroom where he had shot himself are puzzled by Mr Heise's assertion that he ordered Steinhäuser to pick up his gun and take it with him.
