BERLIN. The man suspected of the attack on the evening of Saturday, July 25 at the Berlin Gay Pride was killed in a police operation after a nearly 20-hour manhunt. Abdul Ballout, 21 years old, a German citizen of Lebanese origin, had been on the run since around 10 PM when he drove a white van into the crowd during the closing party of Christopher Street Day (CSD), the traditional Lgbtqia+ pride event that attracts hundreds of thousands of people every year. After the van crashed into a tree, the young man reportedly struck several other victims with a machete. Final toll: one woman dead and 29 injured “who are not in life-threatening condition”; no Italians were reported to be involved.
Location of the suspect and intervention of special forces
“Around 6 PM, the attack suspect was located in an urban garden complex” in Berlin’s Spandau district, police reported, adding that when the man ran towards officers brandishing a bladed weapon, special forces opened fire. “Despite resuscitation efforts, he died on the spot,” police added. Everything seems to indicate that “we are dealing with an Islamist terrorist attack,” German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt had reported a few hours earlier, holding a press conference with Berlin Mayor Kai Wegner at Tiergarten, the site of the attack. Here the vehicle mowed down pedestrians while a short distance away, at the Brandenburg Gate, the final Pride party was underway. The distance between the two locations is several hundred meters, so the people present were simply people who were in the park or heading to the festival or returning from it, Dobrindt explained.
Abdul Ballout’s past and judicial record
Abdul Ballout was born in Germany, and his mother had obtained citizenship in 2002, three years before his birth. He was already known to authorities. In 2025 – according to the prosecution – he had traveled to Lebanon with the aim of reaching Syria to join ISIS. He was then arrested in Lebanon and sentenced to 3 months in prison. After serving his sentence, he returned to Germany, where he was arrested at Berlin airport. He already had a conviction for preparing a serious act of violence against the state: last May, a juvenile court had convicted him for this, as well as for publishing ISIS propaganda on his Instagram account. The court had issued a sentence of one year and 10 months with a suspended sentence, against which the prosecution had appealed; he was released pending the outcome.
Read more Claudia Conte: «I’ll explain why silences in the family are dangerous»
The Chancellor’s words and the city’s reaction
“These acts have a single purpose: they aim to divide our society. They want to deprive us of the most important thing we have: our openness and our freedom,” said German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, speaking in front of St. Mary’s Church in Berlin, where a service was being held in memory of the victims. Hundreds of people gathered at the Brandenburg Gate. Participants laid flowers, lit candles, and embraced, while others waved rainbow flags and held up signs and banners with messages like “Hate kills”, “An attack on one of us is an attack on all of us”, and “We will dance again”.
Read more Pisan Hills, the wind power business attacking our postcard landscapes
