(VIDEO) Suspect in Deadly Berlin Pride Parade Attack Shot Dead by Police After 24-Hour Manhunt Sunday Evening

BERLIN — The suspect in a deadly vehicle-ramming and stabbing attack at Berlin's Pride celebrations was shot and killed by police Sunday evening, following a manhunt that stretched nearly 24 hours across the German capital, authorities said.

A violent end to an hours-long search

Berlin police said the suspect was located in a garden allotment complex in the western Berlin borough of Spandau around 6 p.m. Sunday, roughly 20 hours after the attack. Officers from the city's special police unit said the man rushed toward them holding what was described as a stabbing weapon, prompting officers to open fire. Firefighters attempted to resuscitate him, but he died at the scene.

Police identified the suspect as Abdul Ballout, a 21-year-old German citizen of Lebanese background who was born in Germany in 2004 or 2005, according to differing accounts from German authorities. German privacy laws initially led domestic outlets to withhold his last name, though it was published by several international news organizations.

A van and a blade turned on a crowd

The attack unfolded Saturday night, when a white van rammed into a crowd of people in Berlin's Tiergarten park before colliding with a tree. The area was near the closing celebrations of Christopher Street Day, Berlin's oldest and largest Pride event, named after the New York street that was the site of the 1969 Stonewall riots. According to German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt, the attacker used a blade, believed to be a machete, to assault bystanders after crashing the vehicle. A woman was killed in the attack, and at least 29 others were injured, some critically, authorities said.

The violence did not occur along the parade route or at the festival's closing party near the Brandenburg Gate, but rather several hundred meters away on a path through Tiergarten park, striking a crowd that likely included both festivalgoers and other locals passing through the area.

A history of radicalization and a prior brush with the courts

German authorities said the attack bore the hallmarks of Islamist extremism. "Everything we see here points to an Islamist terrorist attack," Dobrindt said, adding that the suspect had undergone radicalization and belonged to what he described as the "Islamist scene." According to the Berlin Public Prosecutor's Office, Ballout had allegedly developed a desire to join the Islamic State group's armed struggle, made a failed attempt to travel to Syria to join the militant organization, and made contact with individuals in Lebanon he believed were affiliated with the group.

While in Lebanon, he was sentenced to three months in prison for inciting religious and sectarian conflict, according to the prosecutor's office. After serving that sentence, he returned to Germany in November, where he was arrested at Berlin's international airport and spent six months in pretrial detention. A Berlin juvenile court subsequently handed him a suspended sentence of one year and ten months for preparing a serious act of violence and publishing Islamic State propaganda, and he was released pending appeal. According to German newspaper Die Welt, Ballout had also begun a voluntary deradicalization counseling program, though officials had not yet decided whether he would be formally admitted, having attended only two sessions with counselors who described him as polite and cooperative, even as doubts lingered about whether he intended to genuinely engage with the process.

A nationwide manhunt across trains, airports and borders

Following the attack, German authorities launched an extensive nationwide search, with police scouring train stations, airports and border crossings in an effort to locate the suspect before he could flee the country. More than 2,200 officers had already been deployed in Berlin since Saturday morning to secure the Pride parade and related events, according to Reuters.

A celebration abruptly halted

The attack cut short what had otherwise been a peaceful Pride celebration, with participants having marched through the city for hours, dancing to techno music and cheering dozens of parade floats before the violence occurred. Organizers canceled the remainder of Saturday's events, and the attack site remained under lockdown as investigators gathered evidence.

Germany's leaders respond

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz condemned the attack in strong terms, saying, "We are open and freedom-loving — and we will preserve and defend that," and pledging that the case would be investigated and prosecuted with the utmost severity. Separately, Merz described the attack as "a heinous act." Berlin Mayor Kai Wegner characterized the violence as a direct assault on the city's open society, writing on social media that the attack targeted "the assembly for a tolerant and peaceful Berlin" and describing Berlin as "the city of freedom." Wegner later clarified that while security at the event itself had been robust, the attack occurred on a pathway roughly a quarter-mile from the main festival site, an area the perpetrator was ultimately unable to reach due to police security measures already in place.

By Sunday afternoon, mourners carrying Pride flags gathered at the Brandenburg Gate for a vigil, laying flowers, candles and handwritten signs at a growing memorial near the attack site.

A politically charged backdrop

The attack has reignited Germany's long-running debate over migration and religious extremism, arriving just weeks ahead of closely watched regional elections in which the far-right Alternative for Germany party is currently leading in polling. The AfD has campaigned on mass deportations and stricter border controls, and has previously moved quickly to capitalize politically on earlier extremist attacks in Germany, including a memorial rally it organized in Magdeburg just three days after a deadly Christmas market attack there in 2024.

Part of a broader pattern in Europe

Saturday's attack adds to a series of vehicle-ramming and knife attacks attributed to Islamist extremists that Germany has faced in recent years, including the killing of a police officer at an anti-Islam rally in Mannheim in 2024 and a knife attack at a street festival in Solingen months later that killed three people and was claimed by the Islamic State group. Vehicle rammings specifically have remained a recurring extremist tactic across Europe since the Islamic State began promoting the method roughly a decade ago, with researchers documenting several dozen such attacks worldwide since 2000. Germany has remained on heightened alert for the tactic since a truck was driven into a Berlin Christmas market in 2016, killing 12 people, while the deadliest such attack in Europe remains the 2016 Bastille Day attack in Nice, France, in which a truck was driven into crowds, killing 86 people.

What comes next

With the suspect now dead, German authorities are expected to continue their investigation into the attack, including further examination of Ballout's radicalization history, his prior legal proceedings, and how he came to be released pending appeal before carrying out Saturday's violence. The case is likely to intensify political debate in Germany in the weeks leading up to the country's upcoming regional elections, even as the Berlin LGBTQ+ community and the wider city continue to mourn the woman killed and the dozens of others injured in the attack.