BERLIN - The 21-year-old suspect who drove a van into crowds near the Berlin Pride celebration, killing one woman and injuring 29 others, had recorded a video pledging allegiance to the Islamic State on the night of the attack, German prosecutors said.
Abdul Rahman Ballout, a German citizen of Lebanese descent, allegedly sped a white minivan into pedestrians gathered in a large Berlin park at approximately 10 p.m. on the night of the attack. Authorities reported that several victims also suffered stab wounds, possibly from a machete. The vehicle was later found abandoned after crashing into a tree. A spokesperson for the Berlin Public Prosecutor’s Office told Agence France-Presse that investigators recovered a cellphone from inside the crashed minivan containing the pledge video. Although the individual in the video was masked, authorities believe it was Ballout.
Police shot and killed Ballout the following day after a 24-hour manhunt. Officers located him in Spandau, a suburb of Berlin. According to authorities, Ballout charged at a police officer while armed with a sharp object, prompting officers to open fire. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
Ballout had been released from prison less than two months before the attack despite a documented record of Islamist radicalization. He traveled to Lebanon in May 2025 in an attempt to join the Islamic State in Syria, reportedly trying to establish contact with several individuals he believed to be members of the group. Lebanese authorities arrested him in July 2025, and a military court sentenced him to three months for “inciting religious and sectarian conflict.” After returning to Germany in November 2025, Ballout was arrested at Berlin Brandenburg Airport pursuant to a warrant issued by the Tiergarten District Court at the request of the Berlin Attorney General’s Office.
In May 2026, a German court sentenced Ballout to 22 months’ imprisonment for “preparing a serious act of violence endangering the state” and for violating Germany’s Associations Act by publishing Islamic State propaganda on Instagram. The court released him under parole supervision, citing the six months he had spent in pretrial detention in Germany, the three months he had served in Lebanon, and his apparent renunciation of the Islamic State. Prosecutors appealed the sentence, arguing for a longer prison term and continued detention.
Less than a month before the attack, on July 3, investigators from the Berlin Office of the Attorney General searched Ballout’s residence as part of a weapons investigation. Authorities found only a toy gun, and the investigation was subsequently closed. Ballout also had a prior criminal record: in 2019, he assaulted another student at a Berlin secondary school, and in 2020, he and an accomplice robbed a victim of a pair of headphones. He was convicted of those offenses in 2022.
The case has intensified scrutiny of Germany’s handling of convicted Islamist offenders and the court decision to release Ballout on parole despite an active prosecution appeal. The Berlin Public Prosecutor’s Office investigation into the attack remains open.