The 41-year-old Iraqi citizen, identified only as Rafik Y, was shot dead by police after they responded to calls of a man wielding a knife.
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The caller said a man with a knife was threatening people.
He said a second police officer had fired four shots at the man, hitting him with two bullets, and he died at the scene.
Security officials confirmed to The Associated Press that the attacker was Rafik Mohamad Yousef, who was convicted seven years ago of belonging to an al-Qaida-linked terror group. The policewoman, who was brutally injured in the knife attack, was flown to a hospital in a rescue helicopter.
Officials said Yousef should have been wearing an electronic tag as part of his parole conditions.
“He had been convicted of being a member of a terrorist association and of being involved in a plot to murder the Iraqi prime minister”, Berlin police said on Twitter.
German news agency dpa reported that the unnamed man was handed a prison sentence by a court in Stuttgart in 2008 for membership of a terrorist organization.
The policewoman was seriously wounded and was in a stable condition in intensive care, police said.
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German authorities wanted to deport him to Iraq after his release in 2013 but were unable to do so because he could have faced the death penalty in connection with the attempted assassination, Henkel said.
