In Germany, there is grief, shock and, increasingly, anger about the attack at Berlin Pride on Saturday night which left one Polish woman dead and at least 29 others injured. The main suspect, Abdul Ballout, a 21-year-old German citizen with Lebanese heritage, was shot and killed by police on Sunday. But as details of his criminal past emerge, many are asking why he was not in prison.
Germany's Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said Ballout "had previously drawn attention to himself through a high volume of criminal offences, radicalisation and affiliation with the Islamist scene." In 2025, prosecutors say, Ballout decided to try to join Islamic State group's armed struggle in Syria, travelling via Turkey to Lebanon. There he met several people he believed were members of IS. He was arrested in Lebanon in July 2025 and sentenced to three months in prison for incitement to religious and sectarian conflict.
“Anger grows as Berlin Pride attacker Abdul Ballout was freed on suspended sentence despite known Islamist radicalisation.”
After returning to Germany in November 2025, he was arrested at Berlin Brandenburg Airport and held in pre-trial detention. In May this year, a Berlin court sentenced Ballout to a juvenile sentence of one year and ten months for "preparing a serious act of violence endangering the state." The sentence was suspended while prosecutors appealed against the verdict, calling for a longer term. Ballout was released and placed under the supervision of a probation officer.
The decision has sparked outrage among politicians and the public. Dobrindt told RTL that the suspended sentence was "certainly incomprehensible... given the level of danger involved in this case." He said the authorities are investigating how that happened. Berlin's Governing Mayor Kai Wegner said he was "dumbstruck" at the way the Berlin judiciary handled the case. "He was sentenced... under juvenile criminal law," Wegner told RBB TV. "And then, unfortunately, the court handed down a suspended sentence. I don't want to pass judgement on that – that's the independence of the judiciary – but I'm really at a loss for words."
The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party described the attack as a total failure of security policy. "If an Islamist threat known to the police was able to carry out such an act, a thorough investigation must be carried out to establish why he was still able to move about freely in the first place," said Martin Hess, the AfD's home affairs spokesperson. According to Der Spiegel, Ballout had told the Berlin court this spring that he had distanced himself from extremist ideology and violence. That claim now lies shattered, as Germany faces hard questions about how a known threat was allowed to strike a pride event, killing one and injuring dozens.
