AT LEAST 12 DEAD, MORE THAN 50 INJURED so far after truck plowed into a crowd Monday evening in Berlin at a Christmas market just six days before the holiday. Berlin Police said it is investigating the incident as an act of terrorism. Truck was travelling at 40mph – and wasn’t slowing down. Eyewitnesses say the incident was not an accident.
SUSPECT now identified as a Pakistani MUSLIM Refugee who arrived in Germany in Feb. 2016.
Telegraph According to unverified reports the driver of the lorry has not yet been apprehended, as police launch a manhunt.
Local media, citing police at the scene, said first indications pointed to an attack on the market, situated near the fashionable Kurfuerstendamm avenue and at the foot of the ruined Kaiser Wilhelm memorial church that was kept as a ruin after World War Two.
Daily Mail Terrified market-goers have tweeted horrifying images from the scene of the incident which comes an hour after the Russian ambassador was shot dead in Ankara. Tourist Emma Rushton, from England, tweeted from the scene: ‘Lorry just ploughed through Christmas market in #berlin. ‘There is no road nearby. People crushed. I am safe. I am safe’.
UPDATE1: This in from Berlin correspondent Kate Connolly
Police have said the juggernaut which crashed into the Xmas market had Polish number plates and belonged to a Polish delivery company. The company said the truck left Poland this afternoon heading to Berlin and that they lost touch with the driver at 4pm local time. It would appear that the lorry might have been hijacked.
UPDATE 2: ‘Growing indications arrested lorry driver is Pakistani’
There are “growing indications” that the arrested lorry driver is Pakistani, Welt reports (in German). Berlin police have made no public comments on the claim.
UPDATE 3: According to a report in the German newspaper Die Welt, translated by the Washington Times, THE SUSPECT IS A NEWLY ARRIVED (Feb. 2016) PAKISTANI MUSLIM REFUGEE! Der Tagesspiegel, a rival Berlin daily paper, had a similar account, reporting that the man was either Pakistani or Afghan.
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