Man Paid $75M to ‘Deradikalize’ Abdul B. Makes Shooter Games with Girls
A German deradicalization expert who counseled the Berlin Christopher Street Day attacker also served on the board of an NGO that promoted Palestinian and Islamic imagery to youth.
Abdul Ballout drove into crowds attending Berlin’s Christopher Street Day parade last Saturday, killing one woman and injuring 29 others. Police located and shot the attacker the following evening. What emerged in the aftermath has exposed troubling contradictions at the heart of Germany’s deradicalization infrastructure, according to Joelle Rautenberg writing in Nius.
Just two weeks before the attack, Ballout had been in consultations with Thomas Mücke, managing director of the deradicalization organization Violence Prevention Network. Mücke later described the terrorist as very friendly and not aggressive during a television appearance on Tagesthemen.
Violence Prevention Network received nearly 70 million euros in taxpayer funding between 2014 and 2024, according to research conducted by Nius. But Mücke’s involvement extends beyond deradicalization work. He also serves on the board of another NGO called Gangway e.V., a street social work organization ostensibly dedicated to helping troubled youth from disadvantaged backgrounds.
However, the activities of Gangway e.V. reveal a pattern of ideological programming that appears to contradict the goals of preventing radicalization.
Laser Tag, Palestinian Flags, and Islamic Symbolism
The organization’s 2023 annual report detailed its so-called gender-specific work with girls and young women, aimed at addressing gender-specific issues and providing safe spaces for reflection on gender roles. Promotional materials showed four young women wearing headscarves—widely recognized as a patriarchal Islamic symbol—holding large laser tag guns.
The irony of a deradicalization executive presiding over such programming was not lost on observers.
During Berlin’s 2023 state election campaign, Gangway’s Wedding district chapter published a poster mimicking the AfD’s “Deutschland. Aber normal” campaign, but with the Arabic text “Deutschland, aber Helal”—using the Islamic term for “permitted” or “pure.” The implication that Germany should conform to Islamic standards proved shocking, particularly given Mücke’s simultaneous role in combating Islamist radicalization.
In another social media post tied to the same election, the Wedding chapter declared that “the potato does not belong to Germany”—using a derogatory slang term for ethnic Germans.
The Neukölln chapter of Gangway also attracted attention with a 2023 graffiti event for young people that prominently featured spray-painted Palestinian flags.
Contradictions in Counter-Extremism Strategy
The Middle East conflict represents one of the most significant radicalization vectors for young people in Germany—a fact acknowledged by Violence Prevention Network itself. Palestinian and antisemitic propaganda make young people particularly susceptible to radical ideology, according to the organization’s own assessments.
Yet Gangway, where Mücke serves as a board member, appears to be actively promoting precisely the imagery and narratives that fuel such radicalization.
The revelations raise fundamental questions about accountability and oversight in Germany’s taxpayer-funded deradicalization sector. An organization receiving tens of millions in public funds to prevent extremism is led by an individual simultaneously involved with programs that appear to normalize Islamic supremacism, anti-German sentiment, and Palestinian nationalism among vulnerable youth populations.
The failure to deradalize Ballout—who went on to commit mass murder just days after his final consultation—now stands as a deadly illustration of these systemic contradictions.
With information from Nius
