Berlin Pride Attack Suspect Killed by Police After Deadly Crowd Attack
The suspect in a deadly attack near Berlin’s Pride celebrations was shot and killed by police Sunday after a nearly 24-hour search, authorities said. One person was killed and 29 others were injured in the violence, which German officials are investigating as a suspected Islamic extremist attack.
The suspect, Abdul Ballout, a German citizen with Lebanese roots, was located around 6 p.m. Sunday in a garden in Spandau, a suburb of Berlin. Police said Ballout ran toward officers carrying a sharp instrument, prompting officers to open fire. He died at the scene.
Authorities allege Ballout drove a white van into a crowd in Berlin’s Tiergarten park around 10 p.m. Saturday before apparently attacking people with a machete. The incident occurred several hundred metres from the Brandenburg Gate, where a closing party for the city’s Christopher Street Day Pride festival was taking place.
The attack did not occur at the Pride festival, its parade route or the closing party. Instead, the violence took place on a track in the Tiergarten, where the crowd was believed to include a mixture of festivalgoers and other people in the area.
Police said a woman was killed in the attack.
Suspect had history of Islamic extremist activity
Berlin prosecutors said Ballout had previously attempted to join the Islamic State group.
In 2025, Ballout travelled to Lebanon with the intention of reaching Syria and joining the militant organization, prosecutors said. While in Lebanon, he made contact with several people he believed to be members of Islamic State. He was arrested and later sentenced by a military court to three months in prison for offenses that included incitement to religious and sectarian conflict.
After completing his sentence, Ballout returned to Germany and was arrested at Berlin airport.
In May, a juvenile court in Berlin convicted him of preparing a serious act of violence endangering the state, as well as publishing Islamic State propaganda on Instagram and other offenses. He received a suspended sentence of one year and 10 months in youth custody.
Prosecutors had appealed the decision.
The court took into account the time Ballout had already spent in detention in Germany and Lebanon. It also considered his confession, his apparent distancing from Islamic State and the fact that no actual attack had previously materialized.
Ballout had been released while awaiting the outcome of the appeal.
German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said Sunday that Ballout was born in Germany. His mother was naturalized in 2002, three years before his birth.
Attack shocked Berlin’s LGBTQ+ community
Hundreds of thousands of people had gathered in Berlin on Saturday for Christopher Street Day, one of Europe’s largest LGBTQ+ celebrations. A parade featuring about 80 trucks travelled through central Berlin earlier in the day before the closing festivities.
The attack occurred later in the evening, when the Pride celebrations were winding down.
Andre Lehmann, a senior official with Germany’s main national LGBTQ+ association, LSVD+, said the community was deeply shocked.
“We are simply stunned by what happened,” Lehmann said. “This suspected attack hits the heart of the queer community.”
On Sunday afternoon, hundreds of mourners gathered near the Brandenburg Gate to pay tribute to the victims. They embraced, laid flowers and candles and left rainbow flags and handwritten signs at a makeshift memorial.
One cardboard sign read: “The only thing more powerful than hate is love.”
Ashley Jump, a 26-year-old visitor from the United Kingdom who had attended Berlin’s Pride parade Saturday, returned to the area Sunday to leave flowers. Jump had left the celebrations before the attack.
“They’ll never erase us, we’ll never be gone,” Jump said. “As long as humanity has existed, we’ve existed. And as long as humanity exists, we will exist. We will not be removed.”
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney condemned the violence, calling the attack “horrific” and expressing solidarity with victims, their loved ones and the 2SLGBTQIA+ community.
Officials urge people not to be intimidated
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz called for national unity following the attack and urged Pride participants not to allow violence to undermine their freedoms.
“Don’t let yourselves, let us not let ourselves be intimidated,” Merz said. He warned that attacks of this kind are intended to divide society and undermine openness and freedom.
Dobrindt said security measures at major events across Germany would be reviewed and, where necessary, significantly strengthened. The review could affect Pride celebrations and other large public gatherings.
Berlin has previously experienced deadly attacks linked to Islamic extremism. In December 2016, a Tunisian asylum seeker hijacked a truck and drove it into a Christmas market in Berlin, killing 13 people and injuring dozens. The attacker was later killed in a shootout in Italy.
In another case, a Spanish tourist was seriously wounded in a stabbing at Berlin’s Holocaust Memorial in February 2025. A Syrian man was convicted in connection with that attack and sentenced to 13 years in prison in March.
Amsterdam vows to continue celebrating freedom
The Berlin attack also comes as Amsterdam prepares to host World Pride alongside its annual Pride celebrations.
Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema said authorities and organizers were closely monitoring the security situation following the violence in Berlin. However, she said the goal remained to protect the celebrations without allowing security concerns to prevent people from coming together.
The response reflects a broader message from officials and LGBTQ+ advocates following the attack: while security measures may be strengthened, the celebrations of equality, freedom and LGBTQ+ rights will continue.
For Berlin’s LGBTQ+ community, Sunday’s memorials offered a moment of grief and solidarity as investigators continued examining the circumstances and motive behind the deadly attack.
