Dramatic twist in truck attack
Real perpetrator still on the run after cops release Pakistani asylum-seeker
GERMAN authorities believed a deadly rampage by a truck driver who ploughed into a Berlin Christmas market on Monday was a terrorist attack committed by an asylum seeker, Chancellor Angela Merkel said yesterday. However, in a dramatic twist, police said that the man could not be linked to the attack and that the real perpetrator was still on the run.
Berlin police tweeted that they were particularly alert because of the suspect’s denial of any involvement.
Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said the man who had been arrested was a Pakistani who had arrived in Germany on December 31 last year, seeking asylum. His has since been released.
However, “we have no doubt that this terrible event was an attack”, De Maiziere said.
Twelve people were killed and almost 50 injured when the truck tore through the crowd on Monday evening, smashing wooden stalls and crushing victims, in scenes reminiscent of July’s deadly attack in the French Riviera city of Nice.
The mangled truck came to a rest with its windscreen smashed, a trail of destruction, screaming victims and toppled Christmas trees in its wake.
“I know it will be especially hard for us to take if it is confirmed that the person who committed this attack sought protection and asylum in Germany,” Merkel said.
Australian Trisha O’Neill recalled the horror of “this huge black truck speeding through the markets crushing so many people”, with blood and bodies everywhere.
After a loud crash and screams, “we saw the articulated vehicle going through people and the stalls, just pulling everything down. Then everything went dark”.
Police detained the man believed to have deliberately driven the truck, which was loaded with steel beams, for 80m into the popular tourist spot near the capital’s Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church.
Newspapers reported that after the driver left the truck, a man followed him on foot and used his cellphone to stay in touch with police, who arrested the man about 2km away near Berlin’s Victory Column.
A 37-year-old Polish man, thought to have been the truck’s registered driver, was found shot dead on the passenger seat.
German flags flew at half-mast yesterday and mourners placed flowers and candles at the site. The government declared that Christmas markets and other big events should continue. – AFP
THE chilling rampage by a speeding truck driver at a Christmas market in Berlin has left the German nation – and much of the western world – reeling.
Germany’s neighbours, France and Belgium, have both seen devastating terror-linked attacks this past year and the one in Nice five months ago, when a truck ploughed into scores of Bastille Day revellers, is not dissimilar to Monday’s incident.
Monday was indeed a dark day for Europe. Besides the Christmas market carnage in which 12 people died, three men were fired on at an Islamic centre in Zurich, Switzerland, and Russia’s ambassador to Turkey was killed in Ankara.
But this is Germany’s first real taste of modern terrorism and many will be wanting to lay the blame for it at Angela Merkel’s door.
The chancellor has taken a lot of heat over her controversial “open door” policy towards refugees that saw more than a million migrants from conflict-ravaged zones like Syria streaming into Germany last year.
Many feel her liberal stance has backfired by making it possible for extremists to slip in among the refugees.
Merkel, whose party suffered a sobering defeat in the regional elections in Germany in September, has back-pedalled somewhat from her policy in recent months.
As has been seen in France, she is also facing growing opposition from anti-immigration and populist political groups and parties, including the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) and Pegida.
Seeing a far-right party securing seats in Germany’s national parliament for the first time since World War 2 is a worrying, but not unrealistic, prospect come the country’s crucial general elections next year.
While it may be too early to say what the impact of Monday’s events will be on Merkel’s re-election bid, she will certainly be expected to prove her government is on top of the terrorist threat, especially if asylum seekers are found to have been involved.