The truck that crashed the evening before into a christmas market on early December 20, 2016 in Berlin (Picture: Getty)

German prosecutors say the man who was arrested after Berlin truck attack has been released because of insufficient evidence.

Polish truck driver named as first victim of Berlin Christmas market terror attack

Federal prosecutors said the man, a Pakistani citizen who came to Germany last year as an asylum-seeker, denied involvement in the attack that killed 12 people and injured nearly 50 others.

They noted that witnesses were able to follow the truck’s driver from the scene but quickly lost track of him in the carnage.

The man arrested matched witness descriptions of the truck driver, but investigators have not been able to prove he was in the truck’s cab at the time of the attack.


Rescue workers are seen at the scene where a truck ploughed through a crowd at a Christmas market on Breitscheidplatz square in Berlin, Germany, December 20, 2016 (Picture: Reuters)

Rescue blankets and debris sit beside destroyed Christmas market huts in Berlin, Germany, Tuesday, Dec. 20, 2016, the day after a truck ran into a crowded Christmas market and killed several people. (Picture: AP)

Under German law, prosecutors have until the end of the calendar day following an arrest to seek a formal arrest warrant keeping a suspect in custody.



The head of Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office says he cannot rule out that suspects involved in the truck attack could still be at large.

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For those reasons, Holger Muench says, we are ‘naturally on high alert and are investigating in all directions.’

He says six of the 12 people killed have been identified and are Germans.

Meanwhile, the man thought to be the first victim of the Berlin attack has been named as Polish truck driver Lukasz Urban.

The driver, 37, was seemingly stabbed and shot to death in the cabin of his truck.

Lukasz Urban has been identified as the first victim of the Berlin Christmas terror attack