Berlin : German media is claiming that the driver of the lorry which crashed into a Christmas market in Berlin is a Pakistani refugee.
According to reports in German newspapers, the alleged attacker has been identified as 23-year-old Naved B who was born in Pakistan in 1993. Â Local broadcaster rbb cited security sources as saying the arrested truck driver came to Germany via Passau, a city on the Austrian border, on Dec. 31, 2015.
German officials have confirmed the name and age of the truck driver.
Pakistan’s Ambassador to Germany Jauhar Saleem said German authorities had not contacted the embassy over the involvement of a Pakistani.
Speaking exclusively to Geo News, Ambassador Saleem said further information would be provided when contacted by German officials and that information will determine if the driver was Pakistani.
The ambassador added no Pakistani had been killed in the Berlin incident.
Investigators suspect the driver of a truck that plowed into a crowd at a Berlin Christmas market, killing 12 people and injuring 48, did so intentionally in a terrorist attack, police said on Tuesday.
The truck crashed into people gathered on Monday evening around wooden huts serving mulled wine and sausages at the foot of the Kaiser Wilhelm memorial church – left as a ruin after World War Two – in the heart of former West Berlin.
“Our investigators are working on the assumption that the truck was deliberately steered into the crowd at the Christmas market…,” police said on Twitter.
“All police measures related to the suspected terrorist attack at Breitscheidplatz are progressing at full steam and with the necessary diligence.”
On Tuesday morning the black truck was still visible at the site of the incident and a few candles and roses had been laid by the entrance to a nearby station. Flowers were being laid in the center of the nearby Kurfuerstendamm, a prestigious shopping street. One woman was crying as she stopped by the flowers.
Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere had previously said there were indications that the incident was an attack.