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Van attack ends in Spandau
A suspect in the deadly Berlin Pride attack was shot and killed by police during a confrontation on Sunday in a suburb of the city, authorities said, after the Saturday night attack left one person dead and 29 injured.
“End of the manhunt in Germany”
Prosecutors said Abdul Ballout, a German citizen with Lebanese roots, was suspected of driving a van into a crowd near Berlin’s Pride festival on Saturday night and then apparently stabbing others with a machete.
Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said the attack occurred a few hundred metres from a party near the Brandenburg Gate that was supposed to close out the city’s Pride festival, while police said the violence took place a few hundred metres away on a track in the Tiergarten park.
Police said Ballout was tracked down about 6pm Sunday at a garden in Spandau, a Berlin suburb, and that he apparently ran toward officers with a sharp instrument before police fired at least one shot and he died at the scene.
The attack forced organisers to cut short the Pride events, and police said a woman was killed when the van drove into the Tiergarten park about 10pm on Saturday before crashing into a tree.
Officials, mourners, and claims
Chancellor Friedrich Merz urged the nation to remain united in the aftermath of the attack, telling Christopher Street Day participants in Berlin and across Germany, “Don’t let yourselves, let us not let ourselves, be intimidated.”
Merz also said the acts have “only one purpose: They aim to divide our society,” and that they want to take away “our openness and our freedom.”
Andre Lehmann, a top official with the main national LGBTQ+ association LSVD+, said, “This suspected attack hits the heart of the queer community.”
In Spandau, Berlin police said the suspect advanced toward officers with a bladed weapon and that “Les membres de [l'unité spéciale] SEK-Berlin ont alors fait usage de leurs armes à feu,” according to the police statement carried by rts.ch.
On Sunday afternoon, hundreds of mourners gathered at a memorial at the Brandenburg Gate, hugging each other and laying down flowers, candles, rainbow flags and homemade signs including one that said: “The only thing more powerful than hate is love.”
Security and investigation ahead
German authorities said the suspect had previously sought to join the militant Islamic State group, and prosecutors said Ballout traveled to Lebanon in 2025 with the goal of going to Syria to join the Islamic State group.
“The suspect in the deadly Berlin Pride attack is killed in a confrontation with police The suspect in the deadly Berlin Pride attack is killed in a confrontation with police BERLIN (AP) — The suspect in the deadly Berlin Pride attack that left one person dead and 29 injured was shot and killed by police during a confrontation on Sunday in a suburb of the city, authorities said”
The Berlin prosecutors said Ballout was arrested in Lebanon last year and sentenced by a military court to three months’ imprisonment for offences including incitement to religious and sectarian conflict, and he returned to Germany after completing his sentence where he was arrested at the Berlin airport.
In May, a juvenile court in Berlin convicted Ballout of preparing a serious act of violence endangering the state and publishing Islamic State propaganda on his Instagram account, handing down a suspended sentence of 1 year and 10 months in youth custody that Berlin prosecutors had appealed.
Dobrindt said he expected security measures at other major events in Germany, including Pride events, after telling reporters that “everything we are seeing here indicates that we have experienced an Islamist attack.”
The attack’s impact extended beyond the immediate casualties, with police and organisers describing it as taking place outside the secure festival area near the Brandenburg Gate, while the closing party known as Christopher Street Day was ongoing at the time next to the Brandenburg Gate.
