Only four days before the attack on the edge of Berlin’s Christopher Street Day, the youth welfare office had contact with the alleged attacker — without knowing his status as an Islamist threat. This emerges from the Mitte district office’s response to a question from the FDP faction, which this publication has obtained. The B.Z. had reported this first.
The youth office was not aware Ballout had been classified as an Islamist threat because it had not received any information to that effect, the reply states. The office relies on information or reports from law enforcement agencies and cannot act on its own by contacting other authorities or third parties without justification.
Family was known to the youth office
Ballout’s family, the suspect who was killed by police the day after the attack, had been known to the Regional Social Pedagogical Service of Mitte’s youth office since 2017. Ballout stood out, among other things, for a defiant attitude, aggressiveness, and school truancy.
There are no fixed procedures by which security authorities and the responsible youth office automatically inform each other when a person is classified as a threat; such rules would have to be enacted by the state of Berlin or at the national level.
Sharp Criticism of the FDP
That this has not happened yet is sharply criticized by the FDP. Once again the attack underscores the need to improve information-sharing among Berlin’s authorities, said Maren Jasper-Winter, chair of FDP Mitte and lead candidate for the Berlin House of Representatives election.
