Teacher on school trip dies in Berlin car attack
German-armenian man detained by bystanders after Renault is driven into crowds at popular square
A GERMAN-ARMENIAN killed a female teacher and wounded a dozen people yesterday when he drove into a crowd of children on a school trip to Berlin.
The driver, named by German media reports as “Gor H”, 29, was stopped by passers-by as he tried to flee the scene and was in police custody last night.
According to German tabloid Bild, the dead woman was a teacher from Hesse who had brought her pupils on a school trip to Berlin.
Six members of the crowd, said to consist mainly of her students, were critically wounded and one pregnant woman reportedly suffered a broken hip. A video of the moment of arrest showed police handcuffing a heavy-set man with a shaved head, who was dressed in red trainers, a yellow shirt and a blue jacket.
He appeared to be calm and uninjured but somewhat confused.
At one point in the video, the driver says “please help” to a man in the crowd, who responds: “What help? You just killed two of us, idiot.”
The motive for the attack was unclear last night, officials said at a press conference last night. But a police spokesman said it appeared to be a deliberate act and that posters about Turkey were found in the driver’s car.
Turkey has backed Azerbaijan in its war with Armenia in the disputed Nagorno-karabakh region. The driver was “known to police” over his links to “property crimes”, a source told Bild.
The crash occurred around 10.30am near Breitscheidplatz, one of Berlin’s busiest public squares and the scene of the December 2016 lorry attack on a Christmas market. Witnesses said the silver Renault drove “full throttle” on to the pavement and struck the crowd, then continued for around 200 metres before crashing into the window of a Douglas cosmetics branch.
Video footage showed wounded Berliners sprawled on the floor, surrounded by debris, as dozens of armed police officers and a rescue helicopter arrived at the scene.
Damien Seymour, a 73-year-old British man on holiday, witnessed the aftermath of the incident.
He told The Daily Telegraph: “We’re just in a hotel nearby and it’s shocking really. It’s quite horrifying, you can’t believe it. They’ve got these ramps up sort of to defend the city in the areas for exactly what’s happened. And here we go. It’s happened again.”
Sevara Khodzhaniiazova, 26, was working in a nearby office at the time. She said: “We work on the fifth floor of the building next to the crime scene.
“We saw from up there on the balcony that the restaurant was smashed. There were chairs everywhere but we couldn’t see the car at first.
“Everyone is on edge, we were walking along there only an hour before.”
John Barrowman, the actor known for his role as Captain Jack in Doctor Who, was eating at a restaurant and saw the aftermath of the attack.
In a series of video posts on Twitter, a distressed Barrowman said: “There’s a lot of police, there’s a dead body in the middle of the road and all the emergency services trying to help victims.
“There’s a lot of people walking with injuries.” He said the car drove “through a bunch of people” and then “right into a store window”.
“The police presence is unbelievable,” he added. “They are clearing the area, it was cordoned off. I heard the bang and the crash in a store and then when we came out we saw the carnage.”
In December 2016, Anis Amri, a failed Tunisian asylum seeker with Islamist links, hijacked a truck, killed the driver, then drove it into a crowded Christmas market in the same area of Berlin. The attack killed 12 people and injured dozens of others. Germany has seen several deadly incidents involving vehicles colliding with large groups of people over the years.