Pakistani man wrongly held over Berlin attack fears for life

Mistaken Berlin attack suspect Naveed Baloch was returning from a friend's house when he was stopped by the police.

He was soon arrested, blindfolded and taken from a “police station to another place” some 10 minutes away. Baloch was undressed, photographed and had blood samples taken. “When I resisted, they (the policemen) started slapping me,” the 24-year-old Pakistani said.

Speaking exclusively to The Guardian, Baloch spoke about how he had been wrongly nabbed in connection with the Berlin Christmas market attack by German authorities.

He said German police brought in a translator during his interrogation as he is not proficient in English. “I said I didn’t know, and they told me, "Someone took a vehicle and drove it into a crowd killing many people. And you were behind the wheel of that truck, weren’t you?"



“I calmly told them I cannot drive at all. Neither can I even start a vehicle. I told them there’s death and war in my country; that’s why I ran away to seek help. You in Germany are providing us with food, medicine and safety. You are like my mother. If you find I was doing these things to your country, you should not give me an easy death, you should cut me up slowly.”

Baloch said he tried to answer the questions but the language barrier compromised effective communication. The 24-year-old said he told them he was a shepherd by profession and had recently arrived from Balochistan in Pakistan.

Baloch remained in custody for two days despite German police telling him that they doubted he was the culprit. “They explained to me that because I had run across the road when they picked me up, they had reason to believe I might be a criminal. I told them I understood.”

The Pakistani man slept on a wooden bed without mattress, hands bound behind his back on the first night. He was given tea and biscuits to eat but found them disgusting and the tea cold.

German police already had a prime suspect, Tunisian Anis Amri, by the time Baloch was released. He was transferred to a hotel and told not to leave without informing the police, as the force feared for his life. He was also asked not to return to the refugee shelter where he had been putting up.



Following his release, Baloch was all over the news. His family in Pakistan were had received threatening calls. They had been contacted by security services as well.

The 24-year-old and his family decided it was best to narrate his ordeal in the wake of security concerns. “My family and I agree we would be safer if we speak out, and the sooner the better,” he told The Guardian.



When asked why he chose Germany for refuge, he said there was no particular reason. “We found an agent. It was not my choice; it was the traffickers who chose. I paid the agent something upfront, then my family kept paying him in installments, which we were advised was a better method because so many people had been abandoned on the way, or had lost their lives,” he said.

“Thank goodness they found the man who did it,” Baloch said.

This article originally appeared in the Guardian.