UK Trucker Raises Funds for Driver Slain in Berlin Attack

A British truck driver has raised nearly £50,000 (59,000 euros, $62,000) via crowdfunding for the family of the Polish driver found dead in the truck used in the attack on a Berlin Christmas market.

Dave Duncan said on the website GoFundMe, where he created the campaign on Tuesday, that the story of 37-year-old Lukasz Urban had shocked him.

"Although I did not know Lukasz, the story of his untimely departure shocked and disgusted me.

"So, as a fellow trucker, I decided to reach out to the trucking community and beyond to help in some small way," he said, signing off with the words "RIP Lukasz... from the truckers of the UK and beyond".

According to the website, 3,400 people had made donations.

Twelve people were killed when the Polish-registered articulated truck, laden with steel beams, slammed into a crowded holiday market late Monday, smashing wooden stalls and crushing victims.

Urban, who worked for his cousin Ariel Zurawski's transport company in northern Poland, was found killed with a gunshot in the passenger seat.

Zurawski described him as a "good guy" and said his body showed signs of a struggle with the assailant or assailants including stab marks.

"One person would not have been able to overpower him," Zurawski said of the heavyset relative he had grown up with.

"We could see injuries. His face was bloodied and swollen," he told private news channel TVN 24, referring to a photo he received from Polish police.

An autopsy indicated that the driver was still alive at the time of the attack, Bild newspaper reported.

German police are hunting for a rejected Tunisian asylum seeker identified as the prime suspect.