Berlin police shot and killed the suspect in this weekend’s deadly attack during the city’s Pride festival after he allegedly charged at officers with a knife while they tried to arrest him Sunday, authorities said.
The 21-year-old suspect was found at 6 p.m. local time at an allotment garden complex in the Spandau district, Berlin police said. Authorities said he rushed at members of the city’s special police unit, or SEK, with a weapon, prompting officers to open fire. Despite firefighters’ resuscitation efforts, he died at the scene.
Authorities have accused the suspect of driving a vehicle into a crowd and attacking people with a bladed weapon near Brandenburg Gate on Saturday night, killing a woman and injuring 29 others.
Three of the injured people have life-threatening injuries, Berlin’s fire department spokesman Dominik Pretz said Sunday morning, adding that eight are seriously injured.
Police identified the suspect as 21-year-old Abdul B., whom officials describe as a “radicalized” member of “Islamist circles” in Berlin. The country’s Interior Ministry later released the suspect’s last name, Ballout.
“Everything we are seeing here indicates that we have experienced an Islamist attack,” German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said at a news conference Sunday.
He identified the suspect as a German citizen of Lebanese background known to police after committing crimes in the past. Ballout had previously been sentenced to one year and 10 months in prison in Berlin, he said, which was commuted to parole.
He was sentenced for preparing a serious act of violence endangering the state and violating an enforceable prohibition under the Associations Act, the Office of the Berlin Public Prosecutor General said in a statement. The sentence was handed down in May.
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