Whilst emergency services were still at work at the Berlin CSD, trying to save the lives of Abdul B.’s victims, the Salafist influencer Hanna Hansen had already posted a message on X downplaying the attack and is now blaming the AfD party and Israel.
First, the Salafist quoted the Qur’anic story of Lut/Lot, which also features in a similar form in the biblical Book of Genesis – and has for centuries served as a theological basis for the rejection of homosexuality. Alongside this, she wrote the call to “Turn back”. Homosexuals are thus urged to return to the path of Islam. “The story of Lut is not a story of the past – it is a warning: Return,” said Hansen. “The further people stray from Tawhid, the more they call light darkness and darkness light,” she had stated previously.
In another post, she put the term “terrorist attack” in quotation marks and suggested it might be an “inside job” carried out by the AfD. “The elections are coming up soon, after all,” wrote the self-confessed Salafist. Hansen went on to say that the attack had been staged to fuel “anti-Islamic propaganda”. She also shared a post blaming Israel for the attack.
So first the Salafist provided the religious justification for hatred of gay people, then denied the attack had taken place and portrayed herself as the victim of a conspiracy.
Late on Saturday evening, Abdul Ballout, a German citizen of Lebanese origin, drove a white van he had specifically hired into a crowd at Berlin’s CSD. At least one woman was killed. Numerous other people were injured, some seriously.
All the other injured are now out of danger. On Sunday evening, a special operations unit (SEK) successfully tracked down Ballout. He had barricaded himself in a garden plot in Berlin-Spandau. During the raid, Ballout opened fire on the officers. Ballout was killed in the ensuing exchange of fire.