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Chancellor Friedrich Merz vowed on Monday to take action in response to the fatal vehicle ramming attack on the Berlin Pride celebration over the weekend, with questions being asked as to why the suspected driver hadn’t been in prison.
Merz said that it is still too early to answer the question of what political consequences will be drawn from the incident.
“What is also clear, however, is that we cannot stop at mere statements. We will have to respond with prudence, but also with determination,” he said.
The suspect, who was shot dead by police on Sunday, was identified as 21-year-old German citizen Abdul Ballout, who was recently convicted of preparing a violent act and was believed to have tried to join the Islamic State militant group.
One person died in the attack in the Tiergarten park near the Brandenburg Gate on Saturday evening. Poland’s foreign minister identified the individual as a Polish woman aged about 60. The Bild newspaper said the victim was visiting the Christopher Street Day celebrations with her daughter, who herself suffered injuries.
Ballout was a German citizen with Lebanese roots and born and raised in Berlin, according to Germany’s interior minister.
Police said they opened fire on him on Sunday when he ran toward officers armed with a bladed weapon.
ISIS allegations
In May, Ballout was convicted of preparing a serious act of violence endangering the state and was sentenced under juvenile law to one year and 10 months in prison, according to prosecutors. He was released under the supervision of a probation officer for six months after the court deferred a decision on whether to suspend the sentence.
According to prosecutors, the case centred on allegations that Ballout sought to join Islamic State in 2025.
Ballout had also been convicted in Germany in February 2022 under juvenile law for assault and robbery-related offences committed as a teenager.
Merz questioned how the suspect was able to approach Berlin Pride despite supposedly being under constant surveillance.
“I cannot understand how I can track my mobile phone from anywhere in the world — or even use it to determine the location of my iPad, for instance — yet it is supposedly impossible, or technically unfeasible, for security authorities in Germany to determine the whereabouts of individuals classified as security threats to that same extent,” he said at a party conference for his Christian Democratic Union.
Merz said police surveillance of convicted criminals was regional states’ responsibility but added he had tasked the federal interior minister with looking into changing jurisdiction.
Meanwhile, the German federal prosecutors’ office said on Monday that a second suspect who had been detained has since been released.
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