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German
officials call for tighter extremism laws after Berlin Pride attack
Alternative
für Deutschland, topping polls ahead of state elections, accuses government of
failing to tackle Islamist radicalism
Deborah
Cole
Mon 27
Jul 2026 13.58 BST
German
officials have called for a tightening of laws for known extremists after a
deadly attack in Berlin on one of Europe’s biggest Pride parades, as the far
right seeks to mobilise outraged voters before three key state elections.
The
anti-migration, anti-Islam Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), the top party in
national opinion polls, accused the government of failing to tackle Islamist
radicalism on German soil, while the conservative chancellor, Friedrich Merz,
pledged to act with “prudence but also determination” to address security gaps.
Abdul
Ballout, a 21-year-old German national with Lebanese roots who was well known
to police, is believed to have rammed a van into a crowd in the Tiergarten park
late on Saturday, next to the finale of annual LGBTQ+ celebrations that drew
hundreds of thousands of people.
After the
vehicle, which had been rented in Ballout’s name, crashed into a tree, he
allegedly attacked people with a large knife. A 65-year-old Polish woman died
and 29 others were injured.
Following
an hours-long manhunt, police said they shot Ballout dead in a garden allotment
in the Spandau district on Sunday after he ran at them with a “bladed weapon”
when they attempted to arrest him.
Merz said
on Monday the victims had been rallying for “openness, diversity and freedom”,
and were assaulted by “an Islamist who sought to attack those values”.
As
thousands gathered for a sombre ceremony at the Brandenburg Gate in central
Berlin to mourn the victims, it emerged police had been aware of the risk posed
by Ballout as an avowed Islamic extremist with previous arrests for bodily
harm, extortion and robbery.
Security
authorities said Ballout was a supporter of Islamic State and last year
attempted to join the group in Syria. He was arrested in Lebanon and
repatriated, and in May was convicted in Germany of “preparing a serious act of
subversive violence”.
Berlin-born
Ballout, who lived with his divorced mother and two sisters in the capital, was
sentenced as a juvenile to a year and 10 months in prison. But the Berlin court
suspended the sentence and he was allowed to walk free, albeit under sporadic
police observation.
Berlin’s
top justice official, Felor Badenberg, on Monday acknowledged public anger over
the case after a deadly series of car ramming and knife attacks in Germany, and
urged an overhaul of juvenile criminal law.
“In the
wake of this attack, my conclusion is that, in cases such as this, the
perpetrators must indeed be punished more severely,” Badenberg, a member of
Merz’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU), told public broadcaster ARD.
While
acknowledging the courts’ independence, she said: “We must fundamentally
examine whether the legal criteria we currently have for applying juvenile
criminal law are still appropriate for the times.”
Berlin,
one of Germany’s federal states, will go to the polls in September along with
two other eastern regions. In all three elections, the far-right AfD is
expected to perform well, and is poised to take first place in Saxony-Anhalt
and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.
The AfD,
founded 13 years ago as a Eurosceptic movement, has seized on fears around
immigration and crime and more recently zeroed in on economic woes linked to
German deindustrialisation, allowing it to make inroads beyond its eastern
heartland.
Party co-leader Alice Weidel accused Merz on Monday of failing
to take the problem of Islamist extremism and “migrant violence” seriously.
“Merz
remains silent on Islamism – we are ready to take action!” she posted on X.
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