Berlin

i really dont undestand, whats on their head
xxx

Please stop making assumptions and accusations before you know the facts.
It is not yet known for sure whether this was a deliberate attack (or just an accident), who instigated it and, in fact, whether there is a connection to religious extremist groups.
The Germany investigative authorities, which are very good at what they are doing, will publish their findings in due course - please wait until then, as any conclusions drawn before that are unhelpful!

The suspect is a 23 yr old asylum seeker from Pakistan.

Beppi, in fact, I started my opinion with "IF it has something to do with terrorists..."

romaniac wrote:

The suspect is a 23 yr old asylum seeker from Pakistan.

... and a (presumably non-Muslim) Polish guy, who was also in the truck and died at the scene.
In your eyes, is this proof of a terrorist attack by religious fanatists?

beppi wrote:

romaniac wrote:

The suspect is a 23 yr old asylum seeker from Pakistan.

... and a (presumably non-Muslim) Polish guy, who was also in the truck and died at the scene.
In your eyes, is this proof of a terrorist attack by religious fanatists?

From what I've briefly read, the truck was Polish owned and stolen.  Perhaps the driver hijacked it?  In any case Beppi, both the Polizei and Angela Merkel herself have said the act was deliberate and they assume it as an act of terror.  So much for holding back on assumptions and accusations then right?     We live in an age where the information travels very quickly and the media convicts someone even faster.

I am following the news closely:
- Some media sources say the truck "might have been stolen" in Poland, others say it was scheduled to deliver steel beams in Berlin the morning after the attack.
- The owner (company) of the truck said nothing about stolen, just that they couldn't contact the (Polish) driver since Monday. It is not established whether the driver was the (Polish) guy who died in the truck.
- There is no official statement from the investigators about this.

- A presumably Afghani/Pakistani guy has been detained 2km from the site shortly after the attack and investigations are ongoing (not concluded!) whether he was driving the truck at the time of the attack. (Unsurprisingly, the detained guy disputes being involved.)

I agree that it is MOST LIKELY a deliberate act, but so far there is no indication on who and why.
This will hopefully change soon, when the investigators speak.

The news is limited and hardly means much at the moment.
The only fact we are sure of is a number of people were killed and others injured by this, but no one seems to have mentioned the victims.
Still, what's losing a family member or two this close to Christmas matter when there's the chance of a good gossip?

Angela Merkel (Chancellor of Germany) said today:
"We should not allow the fear of the evil to paralyse us. We should find the strength to live, as we want to live in Germany: free, tolerant and open to each other!"

I still assume anybody innocent until proven guilty - also Muslims.

The Berlin police has just announced that the Afghani/Pakistani detainee was NOT the driver at the time of the attack:
"We arrested the wrong person. The perpetrator is still at large and presumably armed."
Source (in German language): http://www.focus.de/politik/deutschland … 80776.html

I think people need to have a certain level of skepticism about the media reports. Not that the main ones deliberately lie but the speculation becomes ridiculous. A suspect had been arrested, not that he was seen to be the culprit but based on a description. Well, a male of average height, dark clothing… yeah, a general description can easily be wrong as this one turned out to be.

Even when it was reported that the person arrested was no longer a suspect the media kept going into what they “knew” about him… Pretty nonsensical. Even worse were statements not just from extreme parties but major political parties saying that what is “known for sure” is that Markel’s policy for refugees is a failure and that criminality has risen due to the refugees. This is total BS.

What have increased are attacks against foreigners. And while it is quite possible, if not probable, that a foreigner did this act, it doesn’t mean it was a refugee. And what never gets mentioned is that any large group of people will statistically commit a number of crimes. One cannot expect that foreigners are all angels so would one expect that a few of them do bad things. And statistics have NOT shown that they have committed more crimes per capita in the last years than the rest of the German population.

One cannot condemn all foreigners for the actions of a few any more than one can say all Germans are Nazis murderers because a few of them are. And a bigger threat than “sleepers” infiltrating Europe is home grown radicals. When people are disenfranchised and frustrated then they are open targets for radicalization be it either fundamentalist religious thinking or right-wing hate groups.

beppi wrote:

The Berlin police has just announced that the Afghani/Pakistani detainee was NOT the driver at the time of the attack:

Alice in wonderland was a work of fiction, and I'm wondering about this story as it's getting 'curiouser and curiouser'.
The police arrested a Pakistani but they say they found a photo ID of a Tunisian in the lorry.
Okay, quick arrest just in case, but why fly him around Germany when you have excellent evidence to show it wasn't him?

Also, why would a mass murderer keep the truck driver alive whilst carrying out the attack?
I can see why he'd keep him driving the truck before committing the crime, but logic would suggest killing him before the final run.

I snap a lot of photos so I see how things look in a raw state, and the lighting and blurring on this suggests a photoshop job.
I'm unsure I believe the details we're being fed on this one.



None of this in any way detracts from the nasty crime, but it questions what the officials and press are up to.

The truck used was a  Scania R 450, and the ID was supposed to have been found under the seat.
I suspect it might be hard work to lose anything under those seats without removing the skirting.

Fred, I think the reason they moved the guy around was to take him to places to get interrogated (my speculation) and since he was going to be charged under terrorism laws they had to present him in front of a specific court in Karlsruhe ( as reported).  Yet things like failing to find any traces of gunpowder which would have been there if he had fired a gun made the case against him fall apart. The original driver of the truck, a Pole, was found dead on the co-driver seat. Who knows if he was already dead before the guy drove into the crowd? Probably he was already dead but  if not, then he was certainly seriously wounded from reports - and one wonders if he was tied up. Maybe the hijacker kept him alive to answer questions about how to drive the truck. Who knows? But that an ID of a Tunisian gets found sounds almost comical. Wow, just by coincidence, a well-planned hijacking is undermined by a clumsy terrorist who loses his ID. Is it a plant by either the terrorist or the police?… Guess we’ll have to wait to see how things play out. But what does seem clear is that the guy was armed and managed to get away from the scene.

The whole pojnt being, we're being fed smelly things that came from the rear end of a large male bovine.
The owner talked about the dead 'driver', but as an employee, not family.

Fred, you're smelling controversy where there isn't necessarily one:
- The truck owner said from the beginning that the driver was his employee AND cousin.
- The Polish driver died shortly before or after the attack (forensics cannot ascertain it to the minute), but definitely after the truck started moving towards there.
- Moving suspects around for interrogation and collection of evidence is normal.
- The Pakistani was arrested because witnesses saw him hastily leaving the scene (a reasonable reaction for a small-time criminal when he sees that lots of police will arrive soon).
- The picture of the Tunisian, whose papers were found in the truck (AFTER the Pakistani was arrested!) is not made by the police (who didn't catch him yet), but came from third sources. That might explain the lack of quality.

But you are right to question why an attacker takes with him such papers (and is dumb enough to leave them at the scene). Such people do not act rationally!

Whatever we know, we don't know a lot more.
The stories we have are either total rubbish or blind guesswork.
We only really know a bunch of people were killed or injured by a nutter.

Thats the suspect (story in German though)

http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschla … 27269.html

GermanTutorBerlin wrote:

Thats the suspect (story in German though)

http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschla … 27269.html

Assuming this is the guy (Really big assumption when you consider the total rubbish in the press so far), he isn't an radical anything except a radical drug puddled violent drunken thief.

As with the rubbish about the ID being found under the seat (The seats have a rubber skirt around them so that's impossible), the truck has a flat floor, so no foot well as reported in the story.

Funny bovine smell again.

As I expected, the suspect was shot dead by police.
No trial means not having to explain how the story changed so many times, so that's handy for the German police.

I hope it is the right guy or it means there's still a nut case murderer on the loose out there.

I think the guy was not just a drunken dumm head. It seems that he was well known as a potential terrorist long time before. His application for asylum was rejected and he was arrested to get ready to be deported but for some reason they let him go again. This is the actual scandal people will have to talk about in the near future.

The story about the attack sounds a little wired. But who knows if the police was hiding some details until now to not endanger the investigation or if the circumstances are just as strange as they appear in the newspapers. And it's also good to keep in mind that most of the recent terrorists in France, Belgium and Germany haven't been that smart all along. So too lose the passport at that car is nothing I would call entirely impossible especially giving the fact that he had to carry his passport because he knew he had to escape right after the attack.