The Islamist and Islamic State supporter Abdul Rahman Toufic Ballout had been convicted of planning terrorism and was required to attend a deradicalisation course while on parole. He lived right next to Saturday’s Pride parade.

Ballout has still not been apprehended. Police have now stated that they fear further terrorist attacks and are speculating as to whether the radicalised 21-year-old had an accomplice.

Ballout is already well known to the German security police. Until May, he was serving a sentence in a young offenders’ institution, including for planning terrorism.

Before midday, police stormed the terrorist’s flat in the small street Bissingzeile in the Tiergarten district, without finding him at home.

The location is in the heart of Berlin’s central tourist district, near Checkpoint Charlie and the Brandenburg Gate and one and a half kilometres from the Holocaust Memorial, the large memorial site for the murdered Jews of Europe.

The address lies only 100 metres south of Potsdamer Platz, the starting point for Sunday’s Christopher Street Day parade in the Tiergarten park area, which was the target of the terrorist attack on Saturday evening.

A large police presence has searched stations and tunnels on Berlin’s S-Bahn, according to Bild. A reconstruction has been carried out at the scene in Tiergarten, and tracker dogs have searched the park area.

According to an assessment by the police to which FOCUS Online has obtained access, the attack is classified as “terrorism or politically motivated violent crime of national significance”.

The current status is that one woman was killed and 29 people were injured, some seriously.

The van used to run down parade participants stopped only when it crashed into a tree in the park area.

Released on parole early

Ballout was released on parole from a young offenders’ institution in May this year, a conditional release which, for unknown reasons, is said to have taken place earlier than usual, according to the newspaper Die Welt.

The terrorist’s full name suggests that he has a family background from the Middle East, with a particularly high probability that the country is Lebanon.

He was convicted of “preparations for a terrorist act” as well as incitement or attempted recruitment to commit terrorist attacks. The background is said to have included social-media posts in which he allegedly expressed support for terrorism.

There is no explanation as to why a 21-year-old was serving his sentence in a young offenders’ institution.

According to Süddeutsche Zeitung and several other German media outlets, Ballout had also been under investigation for attempting to join Islamic State in Syria in 2025. He was arrested in November last year when he returned to Berlin from Lebanon.

Required to attend “deradicalisation”

Among the conditions of his parole was that he complete 26 sessions at a counselling centre for deradicalisation and the prevention of extremism.

Ballout is said to have attended the first two sessions on 15 June and 9 July. The third session was scheduled to take place tomorrow, Monday.

According to Die Welt, the first two meetings had so far provided no indications that he posed any threat.

Police had Ballout under surveillance for periods, FOCUS Online writes. After he published a photograph of himself on social media with a firearm, police entered his flat, where they found a replica weapon.

Ballout’s telephone is said to have been tapped, and he was required to report weekly to a supervising officer.

A recent police report to which FOCUS Online has obtained access states the following:

With regard to B., in addition to ordinary police records, extensive information relating to religious ideology/Islamism is held by the security police.

FOCUS also writes that information it has obtained suggests that Ballout may have had an accomplice. This is probably the reason why police have stated that they are uncertain whether Ballout himself was driving the vehicle.

Apart from the fact that the possible accomplice is said to be a man, nothing further is currently known about this person.

While German politicians have for the most part issued similar statements, the tone is somewhat sharper from 34-year-old Johannes Winkel of the Christian Democrats.

He writes that he is so tired of “these performative, verbal wreath-laying ceremonies”, which end with “everyone looking the other way the next day”.

Der Westen und der Islamismus:
Eine Ideologie erklärt unserer Gesellschaft den Krieg, aber statt sich zu wehren und mit aller Härte zurückzuschlagen, weigern wir uns, die Kriegserklärung zu hören.

— Johannes Winkel (@johwinkel) July 26, 2026

In another post, he also writes that “an ideology is declaring war on our society, but instead of defending ourselves and striking back with full force, we refuse to listen to the declaration of war”.