Berlin Christmas market lorry crash a ‘probable terror attack’

Detectives have appealed for video and images of Breitscheidplatz on Monday night as they try to reconstruct what happened.

A tweet said: “Our investigators assume that the truck has been intentionally controlled into the crowd at the Christmas market on the #Breitscheidplatz.

“All police measures on the probable terrorist attack at #Breitscheidplatz are being carried out with high pressure and the necessary care.”

Witnesses described the truck smashing through the tourist spot – filled with wooden huts serving hot wine and food – at around 8pm, “going through people” and flattening everything in its path.

Witness Emma Rushton told Sky News: “It wasn’t an accident. It was going at 40mph through the middle of the market.

“There was no way it could have come off the road and it showed no signs of slowing down.”

A Syrian refugee visiting with friends told Deutsche Welle: “We wanted to have some gluhwein, have some fun, and we heard glass breaking and we saw people shouting, screaming, crying, some people with blood on their faces. It was a truck, it came through the people.”

A man found dead in the lorry’s cab was a Polish citizen.

Police said the man, who has not been named, was not driving when the crash happened.

A second man who escaped from the cab was arrested near the Victory Column, about 2km (1.3 miles) from the Christmas market shortly afterwards, Der Spiegel said.

No details have been released about the man but several German newspapers report that he arrived in German last February as a refugee, either from Pakistan or Afghanistan, with some saying he travelled via Passau, in lower Bavaria.

The incident comes five months after 86 people died in Nice, France, when a truck mowed people down on the city’s seafront.

Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack.

There are conflicting reports over whether the truck involved in the Berlin incident was stolen.

Police tweeted that they were investigating reports it had been taken from a construction site in Poland but the boss of the firm that owned the truck said it had gone to Berlin loaded with steel beams.

Ariel Zurawski said he was confident his driver was not driving at the time of the crash and that someone must have hijacked it.

He said: “I can vouch for my driver. I see it that they did something to him and hijacked his truck that was practically in Berlin centre … It was not my driver. They simply did something to him, God forbid, so it looks.

“He is my cousin … I have known this man from birth. I can guarantee, it was not our driver who did it.

“Why would he drive in Berlin centre, if he was waiting for unloading. He was packed with steel, 25 tonnes of it. It would be illogical.

“He has been a driver for 15 years … When I talked to him he said he was in such a district that he saw Germans only in offices. He bought a kebab because he was hungry. We shared some jokes.”

Analysis by the lorry’s owners found it appeared to have been started and stopped several times in the afternoon leading up to the incident, German media reported.

Der Spiegel, citing Polish website money.pl, said GPS data showed its engine had been started at 15.44, 16.52 and 17.37.

It finally got under way at 19.34 before careering into the market a around 8pm.

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