A rainbow-coloured bench installed at the site of a deadly jihadist attack which targeted revellers at Berlin’s Pride march in July has been vandalised, police said Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Police were called to Berlin’s Tiergarten park “regarding a rainbow bench installed as a place of remembrance, because it was severely damaged,” police said, before the debris was removed.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The vehicle ramming and machete attack left a 65-year-old Polish woman dead and wounded around 30 people.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The presumed attacker, Abdul Rahman Ballout, a 21-year-old German man of Lebanese origin, was killed the next day by Berlin police after an intensive manhunt.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Prosecutors later said he had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group in a video on the day of the attack.<\/p>\n
The city’s Mitte district council had installed the bench and planted a maple tree in early August to encourage reflection and solidarity with the queer community.<\/p>\n
Police said Tuesday that wooden slats from the bench were torn from the frame with “considerable physical violence”.<\/p>\n
An investigation has been opened into vandalism, said police, who noted that other benches nearby had been left intact.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Mitte district council pledged to quickly rebuild the bench.<\/p>\n
“This bench stands for our freedom and for solidarity with the queer community,” said Mitte’s district mayor Stefanie Remlinger.<\/p>\n
“Whoever has destroyed it wants to make a statement against these values — our basic values are not up for debate.”<\/p>\n
July’s attack was one of several which have shaken Germany in recent years. The deadliest, on a Magdeburg Christmas market in 2024, killed six people and wounded more than 300, and was committed by a Saudi anti-Islam activist and adherent of right-wing conspiracy theories.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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