The attack occurred at round 10pm on Saturday a few hundred yards from a party near the Brandenburg Gate that was supposed to close out the city’s Pride festival, as a white van drove into the Tiergarten Park and hit several people in a crowd
German police have shot dead the man suspected of driving a van into a crowd near Berlin’s Pride festival, killing a woman and injuring at least 29 people.
Alleged terrorist Abdul Ballout, 21, rushed at police with a weapon before being shot by cops, officials said. The suspect was tracked down to an allotment garden in Spandau, West Berlin.
Authorities had previously issued a wanted notice and warned people against approaching Ballout, a German citizen with Lebanese roots, saying he may be armed and dangerous.
Polizei Berlin said last night: “At around 6pm, the suspect in yesterday’s attack in the Grosser Tiergarten was located in an allotment garden in Spandau.
“He is said to have rushed toward our emergency forces with a stabbing weapon, after which police firearms were used.
“Despite immediate resuscitation measures, he died at the scene.” Witnesses reported hearing two volleys of gunfire a few minutes apart during the raid on the garden shed. Berlin’s interior senator Iris Spranger thanked the police, saying: “I am grateful to the security authorities for finding the attacker so quickly.”
Earlier, interior minister Alexander Dobrindt said the suspect had come to the authorities’ attention in the past because of numerous crimes and “radicalisation and belonging to the Islamist scene” in the German capital. He added: “Everything we see here points to us dealing with an Islamic terror attack.”
The attack occurred at round 10pm on Saturday a few hundred yards from a party near the Brandenburg Gate that was supposed to close out the city’s Pride festival.
According to police, a white van drove into the Tiergarten Park and hit several people in a crowd that was likely to be a mix of festival goers and other visitors before colliding with a tree.
Briton Ashley Jump, 26, attended Saturday’s parade but left before the attack. They returned yesterday to leave flowers at a memorial. Ashley said: “They’ll never erase us, we’ll never be gone. As long as humanity has existed, we’ve existed. We will not be removed.”
