A political row is growing in Germany after the suspected attacker at a Pride event remained free despite a lengthy criminal record and signs of radicalisation already known to the authorities.
The suspect, Abdul Ballout, 21, had been sentenced to prison in May after attempting in 2025 to join Islamic State in Syria via Lebanon.
He was not jailed, however, because prosecutors took into account six months he had spent in pre-trial detention in Germany and a further three months in prison in Lebanon.
The decision has prompted fierce criticism from politicians and police officials, who say the state failed to keep adequate watch over a man seen as dangerous.
Marc Henrichmann, a conservative MP who chairs parliament’s oversight committee for the intelligence services, said the individual freedoms of extremists and Islamists already known to the justice system should no longer be given excessive weight when other people’s lives are at risk, according to Handelsblatt.
In the same newspaper, Dirk Peglow, head of the Federation of German Criminal Police Officers, said the release of someone with such a high potential for violence should not have marked the end of the state’s attention.
Bavaria’s interior minister, Joachim Herrmann, described as a “catastrophe” the Berlin court’s decision to hand the suspect a suspended sentence of one year and 10 months.
One woman died and 29 people were injured in Saturday evening’s attack.
The suspect was shot dead by police on Sunday.
