A Polish driver was reportedly killed by suspected jihadist Anis Amri, who rammed a lorry into a crowded Christmas market in Berlin may still have been alive at the time of the attack.

The findings of Lukasz Urban's post-mortem examination say that he had been shot in the head between 15.30 GMT and 17.30 GMT and had lost a great deal of blood. He was also stabbed according to Bild newspaper. It is unlikely that the Polish driver was conscious during lorry attack, say doctors. Other marks on his body may have been made during the impact of the crash when Urban's body was hurled against the dashboard.

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Urban may however have still been alive at the time of the attack on the Christmas market in Breitscheidplatz but was not capable of controlling the steering wheel.

A petition for the 37-year-old calling for him to be honoured with a posthumous award has garnered 38,000 signatures.

A campaign to raise money for Urban's family has so far raised almost £170,000. The online effort was started by trucker Dave Duncan, from Otley, West Yorkshire. Writing on his GoFundMe page, Mr Duncan said he had received an email from Urban's wife.

"She is extremely grateful for what you have all done for her and her family," he wrote.

He added: "Hopefully all your kind and generous donations will get to Lukasz's wife sooner rather than later."

His cousin Ariel Żurawski — who owned the truck company that employed Urban, and had to identify the body of his relative — believed a violent struggle took place inside the cabin. "You could certainly see that he had fought." He told the Polish broadcaster TVP that Urban's face had been left "swollen and bloodied".

CDU politician Karl-Georg Wellmann, member of the German-Polish parliamentary group in the Bundestag, praised the lorry driver in a Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung report: "He was a hero. Germany and Poland are united in mourning. We will stand together against terror. "