CSD attack Berlin: GTAZ discussed attacker Ballout eight times
The Joint Terrorism Defence Centre held eight meetings about Abdul Ballout – yet his surveillance was reduced before the attack.
GTAZ meetings on Ballout: Eight consultations before the CSD attack
Federal and state security authorities were far more intensively engaged with the attacker before the Christopher Street Day attack on 25 July in Berlin than was publicly known. As DER SPIEGEL (Justice & Crime) reports on the basis of a previously unpublished response from the Federal Interior Ministry, the Joint Terrorism Defence Centre (GTAZ) held a total of eight meetings discussing the Islamist Abdul Ballout – right up to the day of the attack.
Previously, it had only been officially stated that the committee had engaged "several times" with Ballout. The precise number emerges from the federal government's response to a parliamentary enquiry from the Greens.
Chronology of the meetings
The first GTAZ engagement with Ballout dates to 28 May 2025. The working group "Operational Information Exchange" of the committee discussed what appeared to be jihadi-motivated travel by the Islamist at the invitation of the Berlin State Criminal Police Office (LKA).
Further meetings followed in autumn: on 22 October – after Ballout had been arrested in Lebanon on suspicion of terrorism – the GTAZ met again. On 7 November, the authorities consulted on measures for his expected return to Germany. Ten days later, Ballout was arrested at Berlin airport and remanded in custody.
On 16 January 2026, the LKA informed the GTAZ that it had officially classified Ballout as a "threat" – a designation for violence-prone extremists whom police believe capable of carrying out an attack. The nationwide uniform assessment system RADAR-iTE had produced a "high risk" rating for Ballout.
Conviction and loosened surveillance
Four months later, Berlin District Court convicted Ballout of an attempted exit to the terrorist militia IS in Syria and sentenced him to a custodial sentence of one year and ten months as a juvenile offender. He was released. One day after the verdict, on 13 May, the LKA informed the GTAZ of the outcome of the proceedings.
After his release from remand, Ballout was initially kept under close surveillance. As he behaved inconspicuously, the responsible officers gradually scaled back surveillance measures. On 26 May, the LKA informed the GTAZ – including in the "Risk Management" working group – of these adjustments.
The attack in the Tiergarten
Roughly two months after this last GTAZ engagement, Ballout rented a van. On the evening of 25 July, he drove into a crowd at the edge of the CSD in Berlin's Tiergarten and subsequently attacked revellers with a machete. One woman died and more than 30 other people were injured, some seriously. It was the deadliest Islamist attack in Berlin since the attack on Breitscheidplatz in December 2016. After the attack, Ballout fled to a garden hut on the western edge of the city, where he was killed by police gunfire during the operation.
Greens demand investigating committee
The Greens, who had submitted the parliamentary enquiry to the federal government, now demand comprehensive clarification. "If the GTAZ jointly establishes that a person is extremely dangerous and good two months before the attack identifies a 'high risk' via RADAR-iTE, then the wheels must mesh", declared the Greens' Parliamentary Business Manager Irene Mihalic. The Berlin authorities apparently had not been able to maintain surveillance of the perpetrator to the required extent.
Mihalic advocates for an investigating committee in Berlin to "minutely clarify" what went wrong. The Greens' security expert Marcel Emmerich described the attacker as a "ticking time bomb" known to the authorities. "Why this known threat apparently did not result in adequate protection is one of the central questions that must be clarified", Emmerich said.