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| Europe |
| Polish truck driver dropped out of contact four hours before Berlin attack |
| 2016-12-21 |
| [Al Ahram] The Polish truck driver whose vehicle was used in an attack on a Berlin Christmas market on Monday had arrived hours earlier in the German capital and spoken to his wife about 3 p.m., according to his cousin. When she called again an hour later, there was no answer. "The phone was just silent, silent. He should have picked up if he was on a break, particularly if his wife was calling," said the cousin, Ariel Zurawski, who was also the boss of the trucking company. "At 3.45 p.m. you can see the movement on the GPS (Global Positioning System). The car moved forward and back. As if someone was learning to drive it," Zurawski told Polish public broadcaster TVP Info on Tuesday. "I knew something was wrong." About 8 p.m. local time, the lorry slammed into a crowd of people thronging the wooden stalls of the Christmas market next to the Kaiser Wilhelm memorial church at the heart of west Berlin. Twelve people were killed and 48 injured. German authorities say the body of the Polish driver was found in the truck, but he was not at the controls. Police have placed in durance vile Drop the rod and step away witcher hands up! a Pak suspect but are not sure if he was the man who ploughed through the crowd. Zurawski said he had identified his cousin Lukasz, whose last name has been withheld, from police photographs that showed him with a swollen, bloodied face. "The police told me he had been not only stabbed but also shot," Zurawski said. He said that after reaching his destination, Lukasz, 37, had parked and gone to get a kebab sandwich, planning to unload his cargo of 24 tonnes of steel parts the next morning. Around noon, the two cousins spoke. Lukasz said he was hungry and that there were few Germans in the neighbourhood where he parked, mostly Moslems. "We made a few jokes, we laughed," Zurawski said. Lukasz, father of a teenaged boy, had been a truck driver for some 15 years, working for his cousin's company based in Sobiemysl near the Polish-German border. After over a week on the road, he was eager to get home, Zurawski said. Another colleague at the trucking firm, Lukasz Wasik, told TVP Info: "He was a good, quiet and honest man. He was hard-working and took care of the truck as if it was his own. He wouldn't just give up the car." 'Islamic State' claims responsibility for Berlin attack [DeutscheWelle] The so-called "Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not reallyMoslems.... " (IS) on Tuesday said the driver of the truck that plowed into a Christmas market in Berlin on Monday evening was "targeting citizens of the Crusader coalition," according to the group's news agency Amaq. Earlier, German prosecutors announced the release of a 23-year-old Pak detained in connection with the truck attack, citing a lack of evidence. On Tuesday night, following the announcement that the suspect had been released, German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere told broadcaster ZDF that "it is true that one cannot rule out that the perpetrator is still on the lam." He also warned that it was too early to draw political conclusions from the incident. Authorities had tossed in the slammer Please don't kill me! the asylum seeker on suspicion of driving the truck, which killed 12 and injured at least 48. A police spokesperson reportedly told the paper: "We have the wrong man, and therefore a new situation. The true perpetrator is still armed, on the lam and can cause fresh damage." Speaking to German news agency dpa following the presser, Kandt said Sherlocks were continuing to inspect the truck used in the attack, searching for fingerprints, blood and smudge marks. "I estimate that the current investigation will take somewhat longer," he said, adding that it could take a few days before new evidence comes to light. 'An act of terrorism' Germany's two top prosecutors confirmed Tuesday that Sherlocks are indeed treating the incident as an act of terrorism. Prosecutor Peter Frank said that, given the target and nature of the attack, the incident pointed towards Islamist myrmidon motives. Frank said the attack was reminiscent of July's terrorist attack in Nice, La Belle France, and of the "modus operandi" deployed by Islamist terror groups. However, Switzerland makes more than cheese... echoing Berlin's police officials, Frank also acknowledged that the detained suspect "may not have been the perpetrator or belong to the group of perpetrators." German Chancellor Angela Merkel ...current chancellor of Germany. She was educated in East Germany when is was still run by commies, but in 1989 got involved with the growing democracy movement when the Berlin Wall fell. Merkel is sometimes referred to by Germans as Mom... , who visited the scene of the attack on Tuesday afternoon, also referred to the incident as a "terrorist act." Speaking before the police made their admission about the detained suspect, Merkel acknowledged that the crime might have been committed by an asylum seeker. Risk remains high The head of Germany's Criminal Police Agency, Holger Munch, said he could not rule out if further suspects were still on the lam, and therefore warned of further attacks on the back of Monday's incident. In the aftermath of such an event, "there's always a heightened risk of significant further attacks," he said. "We are naturally on high alert and are investigating in all directions," Munch added. He also revealed that six of the 12 people killed have been identified as Germans. He could not, however, identify the nationalities of the other six. New Year's celebrations to go ahead Also speaking Tuesday, Berlin's State Interior Minister Andreas Geisel confirmed that the city's New Year's Eve celebrations will go ahead under an increased security presence. Every year, hundreds of thousands of revelers ring in the New Year in front of Berlin's Brandenburg Gate. He said the city will review all of its security measures before the celebrations on December 31. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #1 Apparently the truck driver was alive during the attack and fought the driver. This might explain the low death toll. |
| Posted by: Elmerert Hupens2660 2016-12-21 15:18 |