IBNS-CMEDIA: The Berlin Police on Sunday confirmed that the suspect behind the deadly vehicle-ramming and stabbing attack during the city’s largest LGBTQ+ event was shot dead during a police operation in the Spandau district.
Authorities had launched a massive manhunt following Saturday’s attack, which left at least one person dead and several others injured.
In a statement posted on X, Berlin Police said: “Around 6 p.m., the suspect in yesterday’s attack in the Großer Tiergarten was located in an allotment garden facility in #Spandau. According to current findings, he is said to have rushed toward our emergency forces with a stabbing weapon, after which police firearms were used by our SEK Berlin. Despite immediate resuscitation measures initiated by the Berlin Fire Department, he died at the scene.”
Earlier, authorities described the incident as an Islamist attack.
The suspect allegedly drove a vehicle into crowds gathered for the Christopher Street Day (CSD) Pride celebrations in Tiergarten Park in central Berlin before attacking people with a bladed weapon.
Speaking to reporters on Sunday, German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said one person was killed in the attack, while 29 others were injured, some of them critically, according to CNN.
Dobrindt said the attacker was armed with a bladed weapon, believed to be a machete, and that several passersby were injured during the stabbing spree that followed the vehicle attack.
The suspect, identified by police as Abdul B., 21, was a German citizen of Lebanese descent who was born in Germany in 2005, the minister said.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz strongly condemned the attack, describing it as a “heinous act.”
“What a heinous act in Berlin. Hundreds of thousands of people from all over the world were peacefully celebrating at Christopher Street Day. They wanted us to treat each other with kindness and tolerance. This is an attack on our society,” Merz wrote on X.
He added: “We are open and freedom-loving—and we will preserve and defend that. The act will be investigated and prosecuted with the utmost severity. My thoughts are with the victims and their families. I wish the injured a swift recovery and thank all emergency responders for their service.”
