Details unfold about Łukasz Urban who was apparently stabbed and shot to death before his truck was driven into a market

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

The Polish driver found dead in the truck that plo ughed into a Berlin Christmas market on Monday night “had fought for his life” before being killed by the unknown assailant or assailants behind the attack.

The driver was identified as Łukasz Urban, a 37-year-old who was described as a “good, quiet and honest person” by Łukasz W ąsik, the manager of the trucking company Ariel Żurawski .

Investigators on Tuesday were poring over every detail of Urban’s final hours in Berlin in their search for clues about who might be behind the attack which killed 12 people.

Urban arrived in Berlin on Monday morning, a day ahead of schedule, to deliver 25 tonnes of steel beams to a warehouse owned by ThyssenKrupp . The steelmaking firm confirmed on Tuesday that it turned away the driver because it was unable to unload the beams, which had originated in Turin, Italy. The company told Urban, who was from the western village of Roż nowo, near the border with Germany, to return on Tuesday.

ThyssenKrupp told the Guardian it did not know where the driver went next. The company’s warehouse is located a few kilometres from Breitscheidplatz, the site of the attack.

Ariel Żurawski, the owner of the eponymous trucking company and the victim’s cousin, who identified Urban in a photograph, said it was clear that Urban engaged in a struggle with his killer. He told the Polish broadcaster TVP that Urban’s face had been left “swollen and bloodied”.

“It was really clear that he fought,” Żurawski said.

Police told him that Urban – who Żurawski said was at the “wrong place at the wrong time” – was stabbed and shot .

Police found blood-soaked clothes in the cab of the truck, according to a report in the Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper. It said police suspected Urban was shot with a small calib re gun.

Holger Münch, the head of the federal crime office, told reporters no weapons had yet been found.

After Urban was overpowered, his body was placed on the passenger seat of the truck.

The German interior minister, Karl-Heinz Schröter, confirmed the driver was a victim and not an assailant in the market attack .

The Berlin police chief, Klaus Kandt, said investigators knew the exact movements of the truck from its GPS , but were not revealing more details.

A spokeswoman for ThyssenKrupp confirmed Urban had arrived at the Berlin warehouse on Monday morning, but said the company could not pinpoint the exact time of his arrival.

“He arrived at the facility and asked if there was a previous time and slot available, which we could not offer because it was full. So we asked him to come back at his scheduled slot, [on Tuesday] morning,” the spokeswoman said.

The account was confirmed by Żurawski, who told reporters that Urban had been told to park nearby.

Urban then called his cousin Żurawski . The truck driver had parked and said he wanted to get a kebab sandwich. According to the Associated Press, Żurawski showed reporters a photo on his phone of his cousin in a kebab shop around 2pm, the last photo known of him still alive.

“We made a few jokes,” Żurawski said. In the conversation, Urban reportedly called the area a “strange neighbourhood” and said the only Germans were employees of the company, in an apparent reference to ThyssenKrupp.



“I liked him very much, we made plans over the phone to meet on Christmas,” Żurawski said.

Urban, who had a teenage son, called his wife at about 3pm, but she was unable to talk, according to the AP. When his wife tried to ring him back an hour later, no one answered the phone.



“The phone was just silent, silent. He should have picked up if he was on a break, particularly if his wife was calling,” Żurawski told TVP.



Żurawski said he could tell something was wrong at about 3 .45pm, when the truck’s GPS started to show the vehicle was being driv en erratically, “as if someone was learning to drive”. The truck crashed into the Christmas market a few hours later.

On Tuesday morning, Beata Szyd ło, Poland’s prime minister, said Urban had been “the first victim of this heinous act of violence”.