The China Mail - Berlin mourns deadly Islamist Pride attack as police hunt for suspect

The attack late Saturday -- the first such incident to target the German capital's LGBTQ community -- left one woman dead and 29 others injured.

Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt named the chief suspect as Abdul Ballout, a German citizen of Lebanese origin whom prosecutors say was a supporter of the so-called Islamic State group (IS) with a criminal conviction dating from just this May.

The attack shattered what had been a day of celebration for hundreds of thousands attending Christopher Street Day (CSD), one of Europe's largest Pride events.

- How the attack unfolded -

Shortly before 10:00 pm (2000 GMT) on Saturday a white minivan ran into people on the southern edge of central Berlin's Tiergarten park before crashing into a tree.

Dobrindt said Ballout was suspected of then using a machete to attack more people.

He said 29 people were hurt, some seriously.

Chancellor Friedrich Merz said on Sunday evening that none of those injured were any longer in a life-threatening condition.

The attack took place several hundred metres away from the end of the tightly guarded CSD parade route and the event's main stage at Berlin's iconic Brandenburg Gate.

On Sunday, lines of police officers were combing the ground near the minivan in the search for clues and taking samples of material from the ground.

The car itself was later towed away by investigators.

- Islamist-linked suspect -

Dobrindt said Ballout, a German citizen with Lebanese roots, 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.

However he was arrested in Lebanon and sentenced to three months' prison.

On his return to Germany in November he was arrested until his conviction in May for "preparing a serious act of subversive violence".

He was sentenced to a year and ten months in jail, but this was suspended, partially in recognition of the time he had spent in jail in Lebanon and pre-trial detention, and partially because he admitted to the crimes and distanced himself from IS.

An AFP reporter saw on Sunday that police had been deployed to the suspect's alleged address, around one kilometre south of the scene of the attack.

Dobrindt said that officers at train stations, airports and Germany's borders had been alerted to be on the lookout for Ballout.

- 'Won't beat us down' -

In a vigil on Sunday afternoon, hundreds of people packed out the square in front of the Brandenburg Gate holding rainbow flags and flowers, with more gathering on the Unter den Linden avenue next to the square.

Luka, a 23-year-old student, told AFP she hoped the attack wouldn't be "instrumentalised" 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 hand-written 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.

Politicians in Germany and elsewhere in Europe widely condemned the attack, while the flag at the German Bundestag was ordered to be lowered to half mast.

- Spate of attacks -

Saturday's attack revived memories of a string of similar incidents which have shaken Germany in recent years and inflamed debate on immigration, with several of the perpetrators being from outside Germany.

Martin Hess, a lawmaker from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), denounced the attack as a result of "a complete failure of the government's security policies".

The deadliest attack in recent years was a truck rampage at a Berlin Christmas market in December 2016 by a Tunisian man with jihadist motives that killed 13 people.

The run-up to last year's general election saw a spate of attacks in public places, including by attackers with Islamist motives.

N.Wan--ThChM