Merz Criticizes Terrorism Laws After Deadly Berlin Pride Attack

Chancellor Friedrich Merz of Germany on Monday called for tougher monitoring of individuals who are security threats, a day after prosecutors said the suspect in Saturday’s terrorist attack near a gay Pride event in Berlin was released from detention in May.

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On Sunday, prosecutors in Berlin identified the suspect as a 21-year-old German citizen named Abdul B., withholding the surname in keeping with German privacy laws. His full name is Abdul Rahman Toufiq Ballout, according to two people familiar with the investigation who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss details about the case.

The prosecutors said that the suspect tried to join ISIS in May 2025 after traveling to Lebanon, where he had family ties. From there, they said, he had wanted to cross the border into Syria but was arrested in Lebanon and sentenced to three months in prison for offenses including incitement to religious and sectarian conflict.

The suspect returned to Germany in November and was arrested at the airport in Berlin. He was held in pretrial detention until May, when he was sentenced by a juvenile court to a year and 10 months in prison for offenses that included “preparing a serious act of violence endangering the state.”

He had also posted ISIS propaganda on a social media account in 2024, the prosecutors said.

The sentence, however, was suspended and Mr. Ballout was released and placed under the supervision of a probation officer.

The prosecutors said the court had considered several factors, including that he had served nine months in detention in Germany and Lebanon, that he had largely confessed and had distanced himself from ISIS, and that no real threat had materialized.

The prosecutors said they had filed an appeal and requested a longer sentence.

The attacks and the disclosure that the suspect was known to the authorities and released just over two months ago have added to calls from some politicians and analysts for Germany to take a tougher approach to terrorism. Those demands have intensified months before important regional elections, with polls showing that far-right parties were poised to make gains, in part over anxieties about rising violence.

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Mr. Merz said that it was too early to determine the political fallout of the attacks but he was incredulous that Mr. Ballout had not been monitored more carefully.

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