ALBAWABA - German authorities have drawn the ire of prosecutors over their lax handling of the suspect who was known to the authorities to be an extremist who attempted to join ISIS.
The killer, Abdul Ballout, 21, was a German citizen with Lebanese roots who rammed a rented minivan into a pride parade crowd Saturday before attacking people with a machete, killing one woman and wounding 29.
The woman who lost her life in the terrorist attack was Polish, according to AFP.
A city-wide manhunt ensued for Ballout with police eventually cornering him and shooting him down. This did little to assuage the anger of the German public leading to prosecutors to criticize the authorities for their past lax treatment of Ballout.
In a statement, they said Ballout has long been known to the authorities after he left Germany in an attempt to join ISIS, the infamous extremist terrorist group. He was arrested in Lebanon and was repatriated back to Germany after serving a three-month stint in Lebanese jail.
In Germany, following a string of convictions for causing bodily harm, extortion and robbery; Ballout was convicted in May for “planning a serious act of subversive violence” and was sent to jail for a year and ten months.
This sentence was suspended, however, due in part to the time he already served in Lebanese jail, along with his pre-trial detention, and also because he had pled guilty to his crimes and had admittedly distanced himself from ISIS.
"The freedoms of extremists and Islamists must not be given undue value, especially when people's lives are at risk," said Marc Henrichmann, accusing the German authorities, Marc is a lawmaker from Chancellor Friedrich Merz's center-right CDU.
"With people who pose such a threat, the end of their time in detention must not be the end of state supervision," he added.
His voice was joined by the interior minister in the southern state of Bavaria Joachim Herrmann who said the decision to release Ballout was “catastrophic” adding: “The judges who have to take such decisions must know the responsibility they have for people's security.”
