The suspect in Saturday¡¯s deadly van attack on Berlin¡¯s LGBTQ pride event was shot dead early Sunday evening in a police operation in the German capital, city officials said.
Abdul Ballout was tracked by police to an allotment, or community garden, in the Spandau district of Berlin, a police spokesman said.
Ballout ¡°rushed toward our emergency forces with a stabbing weapon, after which police firearms were used by our SEK Berlin,¡± the spokesman said on X. ¡°Despite immediate resuscitation measures initiated by the Berlin Fire Department, he died at the scene.¡±
The shooting capped a daylong manhunt that stretched from central Berlin to the airport and Germany¡¯s borders, with authorities publicizing Ballout¡¯s photo and taking the unusual step of releasing his full name. The deadly van attack was an act of terror, striking at the heart of Germany¡¯s open and free society, Chancellor Friedrich Merz said earlier on Sunday.
The German-born Ballout, 21, allegedly drove a white van into pedestrians on the fringes of Berlin¡¯s Christopher Street Day event late Saturday night, killing one woman and injuring 29 other people. He was alleged to have attacked people with a machete after driving the van into the crowd.
Authorities said earlier on Sunday that the suspect was a known Islamic State sympathizer who¡¯d attempted to join the jihadist military organization in 2025 before being taken into custody in Lebanon.
The investigation around the suspected terror attack continues, said Ines Peterson, a spokeswoman for the Office of the Federal Prosecutor. The investigation was transferred to the federal level on Sunday.
Police had taken positions around the allotment, a type of community garden that includes a patchwork of individual vegetable patches and small huts often separated by hedges, at about 3 p.m., Bild newspaper reported. Police closed in about 6 p.m. after evacuating other garden plots. The newspaper cited the garden association chairman as saying that people nearby heard two salvos of four shots each.
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