MELBOURNE, Australia, October 22 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - A Chinese-born honors student appeared before a magistrate in Melbourne Tuesday, October 22, charged with the murders of two people during a wild shooting spree in which five others were wounded.

Fourth-year commerce student Huan Yun Xiang, 36, also faced charges of attempting to kill the five other people, among them his lecturer, during a tutorial on Monash University's Clayton campus Monday, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

Huan, who reportedly lives with his mother in a flat opposite the university, made no plea nor application for bail and was remanded by magistrate Wendy Wilmouth for a committal hearing February 25.

He appeared in the magistrate's court wearing the same blue hooded waterproof suit he wore when he was arrested. He had a cut above his right eye and both eyes were bruised and swollen.

The court proceedings were conveyed to him through a Cantonese interpreter.
The attack occurred in the high-rise building housing the arts and humanities faculty of Monash, Australia's largest university.

Police quoted witnesses as saying the gunman gave no indication of his intentions when he walked into an economics class on the sixth floor.

He suddenly stood up and began firing indiscriminately with a revolver and semi-automatic pistol, killing two other Asian students instantly.

Two other men and a woman were wounded before lecturer Lee Gordon-Brown and another student pounced on the gunman and overpowered him.

Hundreds of terrified students fled the building, while some of those wounded staggered around seeking help, witnesses said.

Gordon-Brown and the student who helped were both also wounded. Another academic, economics professor Brett Inder, pinned the gunman to a wall for 15 minutes until police arrived.

The wounded were taken by helicopter to local hospitals, one in critical condition and four others in serious but stable condition.

Inder told reporters that as he held the gunman down, he spent a long time trying to reassure him and calm him down, adding "he wasn't making any major effort to resist."

Inder called the shootings a huge shock to the "small and friendly" economics department.

"They were all honors students, so there was a fairly close relationship between the staff and students, making it all the more amazing that this has happened."

Police gave no information about a possible motive, but reports quoted fellow students as saying Huan was a loner whose lack of fluency in English often left him confused and frustrated.

"Lecturers struggled to understand his questions and he used to get really annoyed," one classmate said.

The incident revived memories of the Port Arthur massacre in 1996 when a lone gunman, Martin Bryant, shot and killed 35 people in Tasmania's historic prison town. At the time it was the world's worst massacre by a lone gunman.

Monday's shooting sparked immediate calls for tighter controls on handguns, which opposition parties said had escaped the restrictions on automatic rifles introduced in the clampdown that followed the Tasmanian massacre.

Australian newspaper, the Sydney Morning Herald, said that Inder admitted he was reluctant to enter the Monash University classroom where dead and injured students lay bleeding after a gunman's rampage.

But the academic could see friend and colleague Professor Lee Gordon-Brown injured and struggling together with a student to hold down the armed man.

"Lee ... called out to me that he was struggling, that he didn't have enough strength to hold him.

"So he asked if I could take his place.

"When I first went down the corridor and saw the blood and saw people in pretty bad shape, I really just did not want to go inside the room.

"I went in because Lee asked me too," said Prof Inder.

While everyone waited for what "felt like two hours" for help to arrive, Dr Inder and the student spoke calmly to the gunman, reported the Herald.

"He was not difficult to manage at all. I was just encouraging him that this was going to be over soon, just wait, be patient, and it will all be over soon."