IN BRIEF
- The ramming attack happened near the Brandenburg Gate at about 10pm on Saturday (local time).
- Chancellor Friedrich Merz urged people not to be intimidated or divided by the fatal attack.
The suspect in the deadly Berlin Pride attack that left one person dead and 29 injured was shot and killed by police during a confrontation overnight in a suburb of the city, authorities said.
Abdul Ballout, a German citizen, was killed following a search that lasted nearly 24 hours after the attack in downtown Berlin.
Ballout, 21, was suspected of driving a van into a crowd near Berlin’s Pride festival Saturday night before apparently stabbing others with a machete.
Interior minister Alexander Dobrindt said the attack occurred a few hundred metres from a party near the Brandenburg Gate that was supposed to close out the city's Pride festival.
Ballout was tracked down around 2am AEST on Monday at a garden in Spandau, a Berlin suburb, the city's police department wrote on X. They said he apparently ran toward officers with a sharp instrument, and police fired at least one shot. He died at the scene.
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What we know about the Berlin attack suspect
Ballout was born in Germany, the minister said. His mother was naturalised in 2002, three years before he was born.
Dobrindt said Ballout had been known to the authorities for a "high number" of previous crimes and for being radicalised.
"Everything we see here indicates that this was an Islamist terror attack," he said.
Prosecutors said Ballout had previous convictions for bodily harm and extortion committed in 2019, and one for robbery in 2020.
They say that in 2024 he shared IS propaganda on Instagram and the following year travelled to Lebanon in order to fight for the militia in Syria.
He was arrested in Lebanon and sentenced to three months' prison for offences including incitement to religious and sectarian conflict.
He returned to Germany after completing his sentence, where he was arrested at the Berlin airport.
In May, a juvenile court in Berlin convicted Ballout of preparing a serious act of violence endangering the state, as well as publishing the self-proclaimed Islamic State (IS) group's propaganda on his Instagram account and other charges, prosecutors said.
The court handed down a suspended sentence of one year and 10 months in youth custody, which Berlin prosecutors had appealed.
The court said it took Ballout’s months of pre-trial detention in Germany and Lebanon into account. It also said it considered that Ballout had confessed to the crimes, appeared to distance himself from the militant group, and no actual threat had ever materialised.
He was released from detention pending the appeal.
'Won't beat us down'
According to police, a white van drove into the Tiergarten park around 10 pm on Saturday and hit several people before colliding with a tree. The closing party at the Pride festival, known as Christopher Street Day (CSD), was ongoing at the time next to the Brandenburg Gate, a short distance away. The party followed a parade with some 80 trucks that had made its way through downtown Berlin earlier in the day.
The attack did not occur at the festival, along its route or at the closing party. Rather, the violence took place a few hundred metres away on a track in the Tiergarten park. The van drove into a crowd that was likely a mix of festivalgoers and other locals or visitors.
Police said a woman was killed.
On Sunday afternoon, hundreds of mourners gathered at a memorial at the iconic gate. They hugged each other and laid down flowers, candles, rainbow flags and homemade signs, including a cardboard one that said: “The only thing more powerful than hate is love".
Hundreds of thousands had come to Berlin to celebrate on Saturday, though it’s unclear how many were still at the festival by late evening. It’s one of Europe’s largest LGBTQ+ celebrations.
Luka, a 23-year-old student, told Agence France-Presse (AFp) she hoped the attack wouldn't be exploited by the surging anti-immigration far-right ahead of elections in the capital and in several regions in September.
At the scene of the attack itself, people left flowers and handwritten messages of condolence and support.
Armin Duenhoelter, 49, from Wolfsburg, who works as a drag artist, was backstage at the main stage when the attack cut short the celebrations.
He told AFP early Sunday that he was still shocked but vowed to be back for next year's CSD.
"We won't let it beat us down," he said.
Chancellor Friedrich Merz urged the nation to remain united in the aftermath of the attack.
“I would like to say this to Christopher Street Day participants here in Berlin but also across Germany: Don’t let yourselves, let us not let ourselves, be intimidated," he said.
"These acts have only one purpose: They aim to divide our society. They want to take away from us the most important thing we have: Namely our openness and our freedom.”
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