Suspect In Berlin Pride Attack Shot Dead By Police
German police said a 21-year-old man with a record of Islamist extremist activity was shot dead on Sunday, a day after he allegedly drove a minivan into people near Berlin’s Pride celebrations, killing one person.
The ramming attack happened in the Tiergarten park near the Brandenburg Gate at about 10 p.m on Saturday, not far from one of Europe’s biggest annual LGBTQ celebrations, Christopher Street Day.
Authorities said that in addition to the one fatality, 29 people were injured, some by a bladed weapon the attacker wielded.
Dagmar Euent and Juliane Gotzler, who have a garden plot, said they heard several shots and were told to stay inside their garden hut by police.
Berlin police had identified the suspect as Abdul B, 21, and published his picture, asking the public for information on his whereabouts.
Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said earlier on Sunday that the suspect had “attracted attention in the past through a high number of criminal offences, through radicalisation, through membership of the Islamist scene,” adding that the suspect was a German citizen of Lebanese heritage, born in Germany in 2005.
The Tiergarten attack was the latest in a series of vehicle attacks on crowds in Germany in recent years that have intensified debate around security and immigration amid a surge in support for the far-right.
