The day after the deadly vehicle attack near Berlin's Christopher Street Day celebrations, the city's annual Pride event, RTL spoke to Luxembourgers living in the German capital who experienced the aftermath first-hand. Among them was Luxembourg student Ben Poull, who had been at the scene only minutes before the attack.
Until the deadly incident, everything had been going well and everyone had been having "an amazing time", the student recalled. He said the possibility that Christopher Street Day had been deliberately targeted was particularly tragic, given how many open and welcoming people had attended the event.
Poull explained that, although he is heterosexual and not part of the minorities whose rights were being defended, he had attended Christopher Street Day to show his support.
He described it as "such a beautiful day", filled with "open and warm-hearted people", and said the idea that they may have been deliberately targeted was deeply upsetting.
"For an attack to be carried out against them is so sad", he said, adding that the news had affected him particularly strongly because he and his companions had "only very narrowly avoided being caught up in it".
As previously reported, a van drove into a crowd near the Tiergarten on Saturday evening, close to events marking Christopher Street Day. The attacker then reportedly went after people with a large knife, seriously injuring several of them.
One woman was killed and 29 people were injured, some of them seriously. The search for the attacker remains under way.
The suspected attacker, Abdul B., was known to the authorities and had been classified as a potentially dangerous Islamist. Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt confirmed to the press on Sunday afternoon that the attack was believed to have been Islamist-motivated.
The 21-year-old suspect was born in Germany, holds German citizenship and is of Lebanese origin.
According to the minister, he had previously come to the authorities’ attention over several offences and signs of radicalisation. He had also received a prison sentence, although the court had suspended it. Prosecutors appealed against that ruling.
Hundreds of thousands of people had taken part in Saturday’s Christopher Street Day demonstration in support of LGBT rights. The incident did not take place within the festival area itself, where strict security measures were in place, but immediately beside it.
Dobrindt also announced that tighter security measures would now be introduced at major public events.
