Islamic State claimed responsibility last night for the Berlin terrorist attack that left at least 12 people dead as an international hunt began for the killer.
German prosecutors and police chiefs were forced to admit that they had detained the wrong man on Monday evening, leaving at least 18 hours for the murderer to escape. The man on the run was believed to be armed.
The terrorist network said in a statement that the killer, who drove a stolen 40-tonne articulated lorry at speed into a crowded Christmas market in Berlin, “is a soldier of the Islamic State”. The atrocity was revenge for western military intervention against Isis, the group said.
The attack, which is understood to have killed at least six Germans and injured 48 other people, many seriously, was the worst terrorist action on German soil since 1980.
Many victims are yet to be named but the father of Fabrizia di Lorenzo, a 31-year-old Italian woman who worked in Berlin, said he had given up hope of seeing his daughter again after her phone was found at the scene of the Kurfürstendamm market massacre.
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Another victim was the Polish driver of the lorry, which had apparently been hijacked from a Berlin steel-trading company hours earlier. Lukasz Urban, a 37-year-old father of one, was found dead in the passenger seat of the cab of the lorry after the masked driver jumped out and ran away after the attack at about 8pm. His cousin said that he appeared to have fought for his life as he was beaten, stabbed and shot dead.
German police had spent almost a day interrogating a 23-year-old refugee from Pakistan who was arrested after being identified by a witness, leaving hours for the culprit to escape.
The initial suspect, who lives in a Berlin refugee hostel, was released yesterday evening after the authorities were forced to concede that they did not have any evidence. Peter Frank, the federal prosecutor, said: “We don’t know conclusively if there was just one attacker or several, or if he or they had supporters.”
The admission came after Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, said: “I know it would be especially hard for us all to bear if it were confirmed that the person who committed this act was someone who sought protection and asylum in Germany.”
She added: “I know that we can’t and don’t want to go without all this, the Christmas markets, the pleasant hours with family and friends outside in our squares. Even if it may seem hard in these hours, we will find the strength for the life we want to live in Germany: free, together and open.”
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Other markets across Germany are to remain open. In Britain, security at markets and festive sales was under review. A lockdown of roads around Buckingham Palace will be enforced during the Changing the Guard ceremony under plans rushed forward by police.
Mrs Merkel has refused to bow to calls to abandon her open-border refugee policy, resisting demands from her own allies to set an upper limit for migrants after more than a million people, most of them fleeing the civil war in Syria, entered Germany since the start of last year.
As armed police reinforcements were drafted into the capital, the authorities urged the public to be vigilant. Organisers installed concrete roadblocks at market entrances in Berlin and in other cities including Dresden, home to the country’s most famous Christmas markets. Most of Berlin’s 60 markets were closed yesterday out of respect for the victims. Regional ministers said that the country’s other 2,500 markets would not be shut down.
Politicians from far-right and populist parties rounded on Mrs Merkel yesterday. With less than ten months before elections when she will stand for a fourth term, the attack has left the chancellor looking vulnerable.
The anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD), which has made sharp electoral gains this year, said that Germany was divided on immigration. “It is not only an attack on our freedom and our way of life, but on our Christian tradition,” Frauke Petry, its leader, said.
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John Kirby, a State Department spokesman, said that US officials did not have enough information to back up the claim of responsibility by Isis. He said: “There is no direct evidence of a tie or a link to a terrorist organisation but this bears the hallmarks of previous terror attacks”.
