Police: Man dies after setting himself on fire

Police on Friday said a 54-year-old set himself on fire and later died of his injuries.

“The unidentified man doused himself with several litres of petrol before setting himself ablaze in the Bavarian capital’s central Marienplatz square,’’ police said.

The incident happened in in central Munich, police said.

Passersby were able to extinguish the flames but the man died about an hour later in hospital.

The motive is being investigated, but slogans written with a marker on his car, which he left in a pedestrian precinct nearby indicated it may have been politically motivated.

The slogans included the sentences “War on German soil – never again’’ and “Amri is just the tip of the iceberg’’, a reference to Anis Amri, the man who carried out a truck attack in Berlin in December, killing 12 people.

A police spokeswoman said that the only thing that could be ruled out at this point was that someone other than the man himself was to blame for the incident.

Earlier in the day in Berlin, police said an unidentified man set himself on fire in front of the Iranian embassy in Bangkok to protest the presidential elections in Iran.

Noppadon Samart, a police investigator at Bangkok’s Thonglor station, told newsmen that the unidentified man then poured gasoline on himself and set himself on fire.

“The man of unknown nationality shouted in protest of the Iranian elections in Arabic in front of the embassy while holding up a sign “Don’t Vote”, in both English and Arabic,” Samart added.