German police shot and killed a Muslim man who previously tried to join the Islamic State after he rammed a vehicle into Berlin’s Pride festival on Saturday and then attacked bystanders with a machete, leaving one person dead and several others injured.
Die Zeit, a national German newspaper, reported that 21-year-old Abdul Ballout was shot and killed by police at a complex in Spandau, one of Berlin’s largest boroughs. The Associated Press also confirmed the report a short time later.
Police launched a massive manhunt for Ballout, who police say deliberately drove a white van into Berlin’s Tiergarten park around 10 p.m., killing one woman and injuring at least 29 others before attacking festivalgoers with what authorities said may have been a machete. Ballout is said to have fled the “horrific scene” on foot. German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt connected the attack to radical Islamist ideology.
The BBC reported Sunday Ballout is a German citizen of Lebanese background who was known to police for being part of Berlin’s “Islamist scene” and had previously “committed a number of crimes.”Ballout was born in Germany, and his mother became a naturalized German citizen in 2002, three years before his birth, police told the Associated Press.
The Telegraph reported Ballout is a convicted terrorist who tried to join the Islamic State terror group. German authorities previously arrested Ballout in Lebanon after accusing him of attempting to join the Islamic State in Syria and plotting a terrorist attack. Then, he was returned to Germany, where, according to Die Welt, he was sentenced to one year and 10 months in prison for plotting a “serious act of violence that threatened the state.”
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