Germany must assume a truck plowing through a crowded Christmas market in Berlin was a “terrorist attack,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel said yesterday, while authorities expressed uncertainty over whether they had arrested the correct suspect.
Twelve people were killed and nearly 50 injured when the truck drove into the popular Christmas market filled with tourists and locals outside the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church near Berlin’s Zoo Station late on Monday.
Police detained an asylum seeker from Pakistan shortly afterward, but he denied involvement, German Minister of the Interior Thomas de Maiziere said.
Photo: EPA
Berlin Police Chief Klaus Kandt said it was not clear whether the man detained was really the driver.
“We haven’t been able to confirm it yet,” he told reporters.
In a statement widely broadcast on German television, Merkel described herself as “shocked, shaken and deeply saddened.”
“There is still a lot that we don’t know about this act with sufficient certainty, but we must, as things stand, assume it was a terrorist attack,” Merkel said.
Merkel, who has been criticized for allowing in large numbers of refugees, addressed head-on the possibility that an asylum seeker was responsible.
“I know that it would be particularly hard for us all to bear if it were confirmed that a person committed this act who asked for protection and asylum in Germany,” Merkel said. “This would be particularly sickening for the many, many Germans who work to help refugees every day, and for the many people who really need our help and are making an effort to integrate in our country.”
Among the dead was a man in the truck, who succumbed as paramedics treated him, Berlin Police spokesman Winfried Wenzel said.
Police said later that the man was a Polish national.
The Polish owner of the truck said he feared it might have been hijacked.
Ariel Zurawski said he last spoke with the driver, his cousin, at about noon on Monday.
“They must have done something to my driver,” he told TVN24.
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