By Markus Wacket, Miranda Murray and Kirsti Knolle
BERLIN, July 26 (Reuters) – A known Islamist suspected of driving a minivan into a crowd near a major LGBTQ Pride gathering in Berlin was shot dead during a police operation at an allotment garden complex in the city’s Spandau district, broadcaster RBB reported on Sunday.
Berlin police could not immediately comment on the report. German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt told broadcaster ZDF that a shot was fired and a person died, but there was not yet confirmation that it involved the suspect.
The attack happened in the Tiergarten park near the Brandenburg Gate at about 10 p.m. (2000 GMT) on Saturday, not far from one of Europe’s biggest annual LGBTQ celebrations, Christopher Street Day. One person was killed and 29 were injured, authorities said.
Berlin police had identified the suspect as Abdul B, 21, and published his picture, asking the public for information on his whereabouts.
The suspect had “attracted attention in the past through a high number of criminal offences, through radicalisation, through membership of the Islamist scene”, Dobrindt said earlier, adding that he was a German citizen of Lebanese heritage, born in Germany in 2005.
It was the latest in a series of vehicle attacks on crowds in Germany in recent years that have intensified debate around security and immigration amid a surge in support for the far-right.
Ahead of a memorial service at St Mary’s Church in Berlin, centre-right Chancellor Friedrich Merz urged Germans to protect liberal values.
“We will defend the freedom, openness, and liberal spirit of our lives and our society with everything we can do,” he said.
(Reporting by Miranda Murray, Kirsti Knolle, Markus Wacket, Andreas Rinke, Kerstin Dörr and Leon Malherbe in Berlin;Writing by Francois Murphy and Alan Charlish;Editing by Helen Popper, Kevin Liffey, Ros Russell)
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