Armenian citizen drives into crowd in Berlin Terrorist attack option confirmed/UPDATED

20:08

Iris Spranger, a senior security official in Berlin said posters “in which he expressed his opinion about Turkey” were found in the man’s car. 

18.19

Berlin police have found a letter confirming plans to commit a crime in the car of a suspect in a hit-and-run, Bild newspaper reports.

Hitting a group of people in Berlin was definitely not an accident, the report added, citing the investigation.

16.51

An emergency occurred in the German capital today [June 8] - a Renault car drove into a crowd on Rankestrasse in Berlin’s Charlottenburg district,  RBB radio station reports. According to preliminary information, at least 30 people were injured. At least one person is known to have died.

It is reported that the accident occurred at the corner of Rankestrasse and Tauentsinstrasse. The car drove onto the sidewalk and crashed into a store building, the driver was detained.

While law enforcement agencies do not specify whether there was a terrorist attack or it was an accidental hit.

According to the Berliner Zeitung, eyewitnesses of the incident grabbed the driver who tried to escape from the scene of the crime and handed him over to the police who arrived soon after. At the moment, it is only known that the detainee is a 29-year-old German citizen of Armenian origin.

While many European media in this context recall similar incidents that took place in the past in Germany, the USA and other countries, Caliber.Az drew parallels between the Berlin incident and the state of emergency that took place on July 13, 2013, in Russia, in New Moscow. On that day, the brakes of a Kamaz loaded with rubble failed, and it collided with a bus carrying 60 people. As a result of the accident, 18 people were killed. The driver of the faulty truck turned out to be Armenian citizen Hrachya Harutyunyan. Video footage of Harutyunyan being taken to court in a colourful women's robe and slippers flew around the world.

In 2014, Moscow Region’s Troitsky City Court sentenced Harutyunyan to six years and nine months in a general regime colony and a year of correctional labour, and also deprived him of the right to drive vehicles for three years after his release. In 2017, Harutyunyan was extradited to Armenia, where he was granted amnesty a year later.