German authorities said on Friday that a 2016 deadly gun attack in Munich was at least partly motivated by the right-wing extremist views of the perpetrator.

The 18-year-old attacker, identified as David Ali S., shot and killed nine people and then himself at a restaurant in the Olympia shopping mall in Munich in July 2016.

An expert panel previously deemed the attack to be motivated by right-wing extremism in 2017, but this is the first time that German authorities have conceded this.

Read more: German police: Munich shooter planned crime for a year

'Racist views'

Bavarian state criminal police office said that the shooting was now being classified as a "politically motivated crime"and that "the radical right-wing and racist views of the perpetrator should not be ignored."

The 18-year-old shooter, who was of German and Iranian heritage, targeted a restaurant known to be frequented by those of immigrant backgrounds.

Those who were shot included people of Hungarian, Turkish, Greek and Albanian backgrounds.

The shooting took place on the fifth anniversary of the killing of 77 people by Norwegian right-wing extremist Anders Behring Breivik. The Munich investigators revealed at the time that the perpetrator had researched the murders online.

The announcement was made by Bavaria's Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann.

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ed/stb (dpa, AP)