A lorry ploughed into a crowded Christmas market in central Berlin on Monday evening, killing 12 people and injuring 48 others, some seriously, in what Germany’s interior minister said looked like an ‘attack’ rather than an accident.
The original driver of the truck, which appeared to have been stolen from a construction site in Poland, appears to have been shot before the attack took place, according to the interior minister for the state of Brandenburg.
This is what we know so far:
One suspect arrested
The suspect has been named in German media reports as a 23-year-old Pakistani asylum seeker called âNaved Bâ, citing German police and security sources.
No official confirmation has been provided at this time.
The suspect was picked up about 2 kilometers (1œ miles) away from the scene of the attack, near the Victory Column monument.
Berlin’s public radio station RBB-Inforadio reported that the suspect was a Pakistani citizen who entered Germany on Dec. 31, 2015, citing an unnamed security source.
This partly concurred with those in other German media. News agency dpa, also citing unnamed security sources, reported that he came to Germany as a refugee in February 2016.
Berlin’s Tagesspiegel newspaper reported that the man was known to police for minor crimes. Berlin police declined to confirm the identification of the man as the alleged attacker, but a police spokesman said the man was being interrogated.
The Welt daily reported that police raided a large shelter for asylum-seekers at Berlin’s defunct Tempelhof airport overnight. Four men are understood to have been questioned, but not arrested.
The lorry carried a Polish plate
The lorry had Polish number plates and belonged to Polish delivery company ARIEL ƻurawski, made it as far as 80 metres into the Christmas market before it came to a halt.
It appeared that the original driver of the truck had been shot, German magazine Focus Online reported on Tuesday, citing the interior minister for the state of Brandenburg.
Police said earlier that the man found dead in the truck was a Polish citizen but added he was not in control of the vehicle.
Berlin police added they suspected the truck was stolen from a construction site in Poland.
The company said the vehicle had left Poland for Berlin earlier in the day but that contact with the driver was lost at around 3pm local time (2pm GMT) and the firm believed the lorry may have been hijacked.
The company’s transport manager, Lukasz Wasik, said the driver had been transporting Thyssen steel products from Italy to Berlin.
“The company where he was supposed to unload the products in Berlin was not able to receive them and told him to return on Tuesday morning. They told him to wait in Berlin somewhere,” Mr Wasik told AFP.
Berlin police said they suspected the truck was stolen from a construction site in Poland.
The dead man in the passenger seat was Polish
Berlin police have said that the men in the passenger seat is a Polish national.
Ariel Zurawski, the owner of the lorry, told Polish television his cousin, who is 37-year-old, had initially been driving the truck, but he believed it had been hijacked.
âI can say, hand on heart, that the man who drove into those people in the centre of Berlin was not my driver,â Mr Zurawksi said.
âThis is my cousin. Iâve known him since birth. I have faith in him, this is not the man I know, they have done something to him.â
Twelve people have died
Police identified the passenger found dead in the cab of the lorry as a Polish national, but did not reveal his name. The identities and nationalities of the other eleven victims are not yet known. Privacy laws in Germany are very strict so names are unlikely to emerge soon.
Berlin police have also said that 48 people were injured in the crash and taken to hospital, some were said to be serious but no further details were provided.
Now being treated as a terror attack
Investigators suspect the driver of a truck that ploughed into a crowd at a Berlin Christmas market, killing 12 people and injuring 48, did so intentionally in a terrorist attack, police said on Tuesday.
The truck crashed into people gathered on Monday evening around wooden huts serving mulled wine and sausages at the foot of the Kaiser Wilhelm memorial church – left as a ruin after World War Two – in the heart of former West Berlin.
“Our investigators are working on the assumption that the truck was deliberately steered into the crowd at the Christmas market…” police said on Twitter.
“All police measures related to the suspected terrorist attack at Breitscheidplatz are progressing at full steam and with the necessary diligence.”
Watch | Berlin market eyewitness: “It was far too reminiscent of Nice”
01:26
The White House National Security Council, issued a statement condemning the attack: “The United States condemns in the strongest terms what appears to have been a terrorist attack on a Christmas market in Berlin, Germany, which has killed and wounded dozens.”
Donald Trump, the president-elect, blamed “Islamic terrorism” for the deadly incident. He offered no support for his claim that terrorists were responsible for the carnage.
The US president-elect said that Islamic State “and other Islamist terrorists continually slaughter Christians in their communities and places of worship as part of their global jihad.”
He added that these terrorists and their regional and worldwide networks “must be eradicated from the face of the earth” and pledged to carry out that mission with “all freedom-loving partners.”
Source: Â Telegraph.UK
Be the first to comment