“He was sentenced… under the juvenile criminal law,” he told RBB TV. “And then, unfortunately, the court handed down a suspended sentence. I don’t want to pass judgment on that, it’s the independence of the judiciary, but I’m really speechless.”

The far-right opposition party Alternative for Germany (AfD) described the attack as a total failure of security policy.

“If an Islamist threat known to the police was able to carry out such an act, a thorough investigation must be carried out to determine why he was still able to move freely,” said AfD internal affairs spokesman Martin Hess.

According to Der Spiegel, Ballout told the Berlin court this spring that he had distanced himself from extremist ideology and violence.

Thomas Mücke, an extremism expert at the VPN Violence Prevention Network, told ARD television that he had met the suspect.

He said Ballout had given social workers “a very calm, very cautious, very controlled and very friendly impression.”

“And precisely those are the criteria with which we realize that we cannot really know the person,” he continued.

Some have called for Germany’s anti-terrorism laws to be stricter.

Peter Neumann of King’s College London told ZDF that German criminal legislation on terrorism is “too lenient” and sentences too short by European standards.

He also called for a rethinking of Germany’s juvenile justice system, which he said prioritizes education rather than protecting the public.

Center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) Home Affairs spokesman Sebastian Fiedler told Deutschlandfunk radio that the problem is not criminal law, but the way it is applied.

“We need to take a closer look at why [Ballout] still at large. Another key question is: ‘What really happened after his release from prison? Who was he still in contact with? “Although he was under surveillance, there was clearly a gap in the system.”

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said it was too early to say what political consequences would follow from the attack, but promised that action would be taken: “We will have to respond with caution, but also with determination.”

He said that if people classified as threats could not be detained, their freedom of movement should be restricted “as much as possible”.

“I cannot understand how I can track my mobile phone from anywhere in the world… however, it is supposedly impossible, or technically infeasible, for security authorities in Germany to determine the whereabouts of people classified as security threats to the same extent.”

He said he had asked the Interior Ministry to review the law on surveillance jurisdiction.