Polish driver Lukasz Urban has been named as the first victim of the Berlin lorry attack

The first victim in the attack on a Berlin Christmas market was a Polish truck driver.

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

Police don’t know if they’ve got the right man after Berlin Christmas market attack

One of Lukasz Urban’s colleagues said he was so dedicated to his work that he probably defended the vehicle ‘to the end’.

Urban, who was from the western village of Roznowo, near the border with Germany, was found dead in the cabin of the truck which was hijacked and driven into the crowd on Monday evening, killing at least another 11 people and injuring up to 50 more.


German authorities are calling the lorry attack an ‘act of terrorism’, although no extremist groups have claimed responsibility.

Ariel Zurawski, the owner of a Polish trucking company, shows the last photo taken of his cousin and driver, Lukasz Urban (Picture: AP)

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

Ariel Zurawski, the owner of the trucking company and the victim’s cousin, was asked by German authorities to identify Urban from photos.



‘It was really clear that he was fighting for his life,’ Zurawski told Polish media.

Angela Merkel ‘shocked and saddened’ by Berlin Christmas market terror attack

‘His face was swollen and bloodied. Police informed me that he had suffered gunshot wounds. Despite being stabbed he was shot dead.’

Poland’s prime minister, Beata Szydlo, said the Pole was ‘the first victim of this heinous act of violence’.

Berlin police also said in a tweet that the man who was found dead in the truck did not control the truck which was driven to the Christmas market.

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)

Zurawski said Urban arrived with a delivery of steel at a branch of the Thyssenkrupp company in Berlin on Monday at 7am but was told to wait with his delivery until 8am the following day.

Zurawski showed reporters a photo on his phone of his cousin in a kebab bar around 2pm, the last photo known of him still alive.

Berlin police chief Klaus Kandt said authorities have the ‘exact movement of the truck’ from GPS but they are not releasing any details.

Zurawski said Urban, who is survived by a wife and teenage son, last had contact with his wife at 3pm local time, but that she could not talk then because she was at work. She said she would call at 4pm, but at that point he was no longer answering his phone.

Zurawski described unusual movements on the truck’s GPS at 3.45pm indicate Urban was not in control.

‘The car was started up, turned off, driven forward, then backward. As if somebody inside was learning how to drive,’ Zurawski said on TVP Info.

There was no more movement until 7.40pm, when the truck started and travelled some six miles, sometimes turning in tight spots or crossing the double line, before arriving at the Christmas market, Zurawski said.