Police with a sniffer dog searches a car which crashed into the main gate of the chancellery in Berlin
Credit: FABRIZIO BENSCH /REUTERS
A car crashed into the gate of the office of German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin on Wednesday and the driver has now been taken into custody, according to the police.
Pictures from the scene showed police inspecting an estate car at the gate with the words "You damn killers of children and old people" scrawled in white on one side and "Stop Globalisation Politics" written on the other.
There were no immediate reports of casualties. Dozens of police and a fire engine were on the scene.
The car had license plates from the North Rhine-Westphalia area of Lippe and was driven away by the Berlin fire department showing little sign of damage.
Local and federal police are investigating if the driver struck the gate intentionally, but Berlin police’s spokeswoman said they did not currently suspect an attack.
Firefighters remove the car that crashed into the gate
Credit: FABRIZIO BENSCH /REUTERS
Merkel was scheduled to be hosting a video conference of German state premiers on Wednesday morning, at which an extension to the coronavirus lockdown and further steps to combat the pandemic were due to be discussed.
Europe is on high alert after suspected Islamist militants killed eight people in Paris, Nice and Vienna in recent weeks. On Tuesday, Swiss police have identified a Swiss woman who knifed a victim in the neck and grabbed another by the throat in a Lugano department store as a known jihadist.
Four years ago, a failed Tunisian asylum seeker with Islamist links, hijacked a truck then plowed it into a crowded Berlin Christmas market, killing 11 more people and injuring dozens of others.
The chancellery office, a white post-modernist structure set across a square from the Reichstag building that houses Germany’s parliament, is well set back from any main roads.
This is a breaking story and we will bring you more as we have it.
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