Suspect in Berlin’s Pride attack shot dead
Berlin, GERMANY—German police said on Sunday they had shot and killed the chief suspect in what officials described as a deadly Islamist attack near the Berlin Pride parade the previous night, the latest ramming assault to hit the country.
The attack late Saturday—the first such incident to target the German capital’s LGBTQ community—killed one woman and wounded 29 others.
Berlin police said on X (formerly Twitter) that they had traced the chief suspect, 21-year-old Abdul Ballout, to an allotment complex in the western Spandau district at around 6 p.m. on Sunday.
Ballout “ran towards them with a bladed weapon,” the police said, prompting officers to open fire, “injuring the suspect so that he died at the scene despite attempts to resuscitate him.”
Earlier, prosecutors had said that Ballout, a German citizen of Lebanese origin, had been a supporter of the so-called Islamic State group with several criminal convictions, the latest dating from May.
Saturday’s attack shattered what had been a day of celebration for hundreds of thousands attending Christopher Street Day, one of Europe’s largest Pride events.
Politicians in Germany and elsewhere in Europe widely condemned the attack, while the flag at the German Bundestag was lowered to half-staff.
Speaking before a memorial service for the victims at Berlin’s Marienkirche church, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz appealed to those targeted by the attack to “not let yourselves be intimidated.”
