Church bells to peal and service to be held

Today marks the seventeenth anniversary the Zug Massacre in September of 2001 and this will be commemorated at an ecumenical service to be held at 7 pm this evening at St Oswald's church.

The service will be led by Alfredo Sacchi, canon and deacon of the Roman Catholic Church of the canton of Zug and Andreas Haas, vicar of the Reformed Church parish of Zug-West. Appropriate organ music will also be performed.

The population is warmly invited to attend and take part in this service to remember all those who were killed or affected by the massacre seventeen years ago.

For those who are perhaps new to Zug, it was on the morning of 27 September year that a gunman bearing a grudge against the authorities entered the parliament building, shot dead 14 people and seriously wounded 15 others before killing himself.

At midday today church bells will peal across the canton and the blue-and-white cantonal flag will fly at half-mast as wreaths are placed by the commemorative plaque on the parliament building as well as on the graves of those who died; their names appear below.
 
Peter Bossard, member of the cantonal government, of Zug
Monika Hutter-Häfliger, member of the cantonal government, of Baar
Jean-Paul Flachsmann, member of the cantonal government, of Zug
Herbert Arnet, president of the cantonal parliament, of Cham
Martin Döbeli, parliamentarian, of Zug
Dorly Heimgartner, parliamentarian, of Zug
Kurt Nussbaumer, parliamentarian, of Oberägeri
Rolf Nussbaumer, parliamentarian, of Baar
Konrad Häusler, parliamentarian, of Unterägeri
Erich Iten, parliamentarian, of Unterägeri
Karl Gretener, parliamentarian, of Cham
Willi Wismer, parliamentarian, of Risch
Heinz Grüter, parliamentarian, of Baar
Käthi Langenegger, parliamentarian, of Baar
 
as well as the perpetrator, Friedrich Leibacher, of Zug.
 
Some of those present in the parliament building that day continue to represent the people of Zug there to this day. One mentioned how, whenever he hears of another shooting massacre with lives lost, a shudder goes down his spine.