* Gunman shoots dead six in Roma family, another woman
* Kills himself after police chase
(Adds victims were Roma, updates death toll)
By Martin Santa
BRATISLAVA, Aug 30 (Reuters) - A gunman shot dead six
members of a Roma family and another woman in the Slovak capital
Bratislava on Monday before killing himself, government
officials said.
Fourteen more people were wounded in a gun battle with
police following the murders, including one officer shot in the
head.
The motive of the gunman, who was a Slovak aged about 50,
and his identity were still being investigated, Police Chief
Jaroslav Spisiak said.
"He was alone. He fired at everything that moved during his
escape bid, the policemen surrounded him ... they made it
impossible for him to escape," Spisiak told reporters near the
apartment block where the shooting happened.
Interior Minister Daniel Lipsic said six of the victims were
members of the mostly poor Roma minority whose integration into
society has been a long-running issue in Slovakia.
"It was a family of Roma origin. We do not know the motive
yet, I do not want to speculate if it was or was not a racist
motive," he told a news conference.
There have been disputes and minor clashes in Slovakia
between Roma and the majority population, especially in smaller
towns, but no racist multiple murders. There are about 430,000
Roma among Slovakia's population of 5.4 million.
In neighbouring Hungary, several Roma have been killed in
recent years in what appeared to be racially-motivated attacks.
The Devinska Nova Ves district of Bratislava, where the
shooting took place, was sealed off by police after the
incident, a Reuters reporter on the scene said.
Spisiak said the man entered an apartment armed with a
submachinegun with eight magazines and two handguns, and shot
dead four women and a man inside.
He killed another relative in the doorway and another woman
standing on a balcony nearby before police cornered him, and
then killed himself.
Renata Vandariakova, head doctor of the Bratislava
University Hospital, said the hospital was treating nine of the
wounded, one of whom was in critical condition.
She said others among the wounded had been shot in the chest
and abdomen.
Slovakia, a member of the European Union, experienced
several shooting incidents involving criminal gangs in the 1990s
but has had no large-scale shootings in recent years.
The shooting spree was the most lethal in Europe since a
gunman opened fire on people in the rural English county of
Cumbria in June, killing 12.
(Additional reporting by Roman Gazdik, writing by Jan Lopatka;
editing by Andrew Dobbie)
