Berlin police shot and killed Abdul Ballout, the suspect in a deadly attack at a city festival, following a nearly 24-hour manhunt. The incident occurred on Sunday evening in Spandau, a suburb of Berlin, shortly after authorities identified Ballout as responsible for the violence in downtown Berlin the previous night.

Ballout, a German citizen of Lebanese descent, is believed to have driven a van into a crowd near the Brandenburg Gate during the city’s festival on Saturday night. After the vehicular assault, he reportedly attacked additional victims with a machete. The assault left one person dead and 29 others injured. Officials have described the incident as an Islamic extremist terror attack.

The suspect was located around 6 p.m. on Sunday in a garden area in Spandau. According to police, Ballout approached officers with a sharp weapon, prompting them to open fire. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

Authorities revealed that Ballout had a history of radicalization and attempted to join the militant group Daesh. In 2025, he traveled to Lebanon with the intention of reaching Syria to link up with the organization. During that time, he made contact with individuals believed to be affiliated with Daesh, although the precise nature of these connections remains unclear. Ballout was arrested in Lebanon that year and received a three-month sentence from a military court for incitement to religious and sectarian conflict.

After serving his sentence, Ballout returned to Germany, where he was detained at Berlin airport. In May, a juvenile court convicted him of preparing a serious act of violence threatening the state, as well as disseminating propaganda on social media, among other charges. The court imposed a suspended sentence of one year and 10 months in youth custody. Prosecutors appealed, arguing that the sentence was too lenient.

The court considered Ballout’s time in pretrial detention in both Lebanon and Germany and took into account his confession and apparent distancing from the militant group. It noted that no actual attack had occurred during the previous offenses. As a result, Ballout was released pending the outcome of the appeal process.

Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt confirmed that the festival attack took place just a few hundred meters away from a party marking the event’s conclusion. The context of Ballout’s previous convictions and his ongoing appeal has raised questions about the effectiveness of Germany’s counterterrorism and judicial measures in preventing such attacks. The investigation into the incident continues.