He killed five people on Tuesday, including a baby, in a car in a pedestrian area in the German city of Trier.
Justice has just sent a 51-year-old man into pre-trial detention.
The placement in psychiatric care of this individual, heavily alcoholic Tuesday at the time of the facts, had been considered for a time.
He is being prosecuted for five homicides and 18 attempts.
In an SUV vehicle, he drove on Tuesday afternoon in a pedestrian area in the Rhineland-Palatinate city, killing five people, including a nine-week-old baby, and injuring 18 others, six of them seriously.
The fast-moving car "hit and run over random passers-by," said local police official Franz-Dieter Ankner.
He was arrested just minutes after his crazy race, the motivation of which remains undetermined.
The investigators ruled out any political or religious motive.
He had left his apartment several days ago, sleeping in his car, police said.
A tribute paid this Wednesday
Hundreds of people gathered on Wednesday morning, despite restrictions linked to the pandemic, near Porta Nigra, Trier's iconic monument, to pay tribute to the victims.
The day after the death of 5 people, killed by a car-ram in a pedestrian zone in Trier, passers-by gather and place candles at the scene of the tragedy #AFP @SengelJulien pic.twitter.com/l4uThRGIzf
- Agence France-Presse (@afpfr) December 2, 2020
"Let us nurture this solidarity that I am experiencing here, at this time, in the weeks and months to come," declared the mayor of Trier, Wolfram Leibe.
The leader of the State-region, Malu Dreyer, spoke of a "terrible event here, in this beautiful city".
"Nothing, really nothing, can justify this brutal and terrible act", she lamented.
