This news ticker about the deadly incident in Berlin is continuously updated.
Update from June 9, 3:23 p.m: The investigators have no indications of a terrorist background – “but an accident can also be ruled out against this background,” said Sebastian Büchner, spokesman for the Berlin public prosecutor’s office.
The investigators are assuming an intentional act. According to Büchner, it has been confirmed that a mental illness was the reason for the crime. Drugs were found when the 29-year-old driver’s apartment was searched. The accused had released his doctors from the duty of confidentiality.
Berlin: driver races in a crowd – prosecutors requested accommodation in psychiatry
Update from June 9, 2:52 p.m: The General Prosecutor’s Office in Berlin has appeared before the press. The suspicion against the driver had been confirmed. There are indications that he suffers from a mental impairment. Medicines were found. There are signs of paranoid schizophrenia. There are no indications of a terrorist background to the act.
The Berlin public prosecutor’s office wants to temporarily place the 29-year-old gunman in a psychiatric ward. A placement order will be applied for, said the spokesman for the authority, senior public prosecutor Sebastian Büchner, on Thursday in the capital.
Update from June 9, 2:26 p.m: A press conference by the Berlin Public Prosecutor’s Office on the death drive on Ku’damm is scheduled shortly. We will then summarize the most important statements for you at this point.
Car races in a group of people: Berliner feels reminded of the Breitscheidplatz assassination
Update from June 9, 2:01 p.m: “It’s like déjà vu,” a 60-year-old Berliner told the dpa news agency. The death drive on Berlin’s Ku’damm brought back memories of 2016, when an Islamist assassin drove into the Christmas market on Breitscheidplatz – he was there too, he says. “When I read the message and the Memorial Church was displayed, I thought: No, again?”
Markings such as yellow color circles on the sidewalk still bear witness to the dramatic events. People laid flowers and candles on Ku’damm in Berlin.
Car crashes into a crowd in Berlin: Interior Minister Faeser travels to the scene of the accident
Update from June 9, 1:32 p.m: After the death drive on Ku’damm, Federal Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser (SPD) got an impression of the situation at the scene. Together with police chief Barbara Slowik, she visited the area at Breitscheidplatz and spoke to police officers.
Berlin: Car crashes into a crowd – “Have very heavy hearts”
Update from June 9, 12:30 p.m.: In a press conference, the Hessian Prime Minister Boris Rhein, Minister of Education Alexander Lorz, the District Administrator of the Waldeck-Frankenberg district, Jürgen van der Horst, and the Mayor of Bad Arolsen made statements.
The news made everyone “stunned”, said Rhein at the beginning of the PK. “Of course, we are stunned that there was a group of students in Berlin who came to Berlin out of joy.” It was their final trip, “that makes the matter all the more tragic,” he continued. He assured that the affected Kaulbach school, the victims and their relatives should receive all possible support from the state of Hesse.