The man had posters about Turkey in his vehicle.
A 29-year-old man drove it his car against a crowd people killed a teacher and injured 14 pedestrians on Wednesday, a busy shopping street in Berlin, some of them seriously, authorities said on Wednesday.
“The latest evidence suggests that this is a case of a mentally ill person “I am occupied by Amok”, said Iris Spranger, the Minister of Interior of Berlin, about this incident, which took place near the Church of Kaiser William, one of the most famous sights of the German capital.
German police have identified the perpetrator as a German of Armenian descent. The vehicle, after climbing the sidewalk twice, ended up in the window of a store. The driver was arrested by passers-by who handed him over to the authorities.
#Berlin terrorist arrest, after car deliberately driven at shoppers, leaving at least 1 dead and 8 critical.@JohnBarrowman pic.twitter.com/hNj0QrsYSh
– Darren Davy (@ saucyjack73) June 8, 2022
Among the injured are small children, school students.
The fire department initially announced that 12 people were injured, six of them seriously. Police then spoke of 14 students among the injured.
The teacher who was killed was accompanying the students of a high school class, between 16 and 17 years old, to a school in the small town of Bad Arolsen in the state of Hesse in central Germany, as broadcast by the public television network of Hesse.
Last night two candles were lit at the entrance of the Kaulbach school in the city.
Officials denied reports in the Bild newspaper that the driver had left a “letter of confession” inside the vehicle. According to police, posters were found relating to Turkey, which has troubled relations with Armenia.
The Bild newspaper published a photo of the driver of the vehicle at the time of his arrest. He was wearing a yellow sweater, tracksuits and red sneakers.
More than 100 men from the emergency services rushed to the scene.
Reuters photos show the small silver Renault car inside a store whose window is broken.
The scene, located on a shopping street near a McDonald’s restaurant, was cordoned off by police and a helicopter was flown over.
According to the police, a little after the incident the neighboring building complex Europa Center was evacuatedwhere a shopping center is located, in case the vehicle contained explosives.
“The federal government has certainly been informed of this horrific incident today in Berlin, it is deeply saddened and concerned. Our thoughts are with the injured and their relatives,” a government spokesman said.
The incident evoked memories of the attack launched in 2016 by a man in the same area of ​​Berlin, when he killed the driver of a truck and drove the heavy vehicle to a crowded Christmas market, killing 11 other people there.
Anis Amri, a Tunisian who had not been granted political asylum and had links to Islamist circles, escaped after the attack in Italy, where he was later shot dead by Italian police.
