Investigators recovered a mobile phone video from the suspect's van showing a masked man pledging allegiance to ISIS hours before Saturday's deadly Berlin Pride attack, it has been reported.
Abdul Ballout, 21, a German citizen of Lebanese origin, is believed to have driven the delivery vehicle into pedestrians near the Christopher Street Day parade in the Tiergarten at about 10 pm on July 25, killing a 65-year-old Polish woman and injuring 29 others, several critically. After crashing into a tree, he continued the assault with a blade before fleeing. Berlin police tracked him to a Spandau allotment garden the following evening, shooting him dead when he charged officers with a knife.
Suspect's background
Ballout was well known to security agencies as an Islamist extremist, reported Bild. He posted ISIS propaganda in 2024, attempted to reach Syria via Lebanon in 2025, served three months in a Lebanese military prison, and returned to Germany that November. In May 2026, a Berlin court sentenced him to 22 months for preparing a serious act of state-endangering violence. The sentence was not immediately enforced pending appeal, leaving him free under supervision.
Investigation and response
A covert LKA surveillance camera captured him leaving his apartment shortly before the strike. Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt described the rampage as an Islamist terror attack. The discovery of the pledge video reinforces that assessment and intensifies scrutiny over how a monitored extremist, previously convicted and under active surveillance, was able to carry out the attack.
