German state prosecutors have arrested a 40-year-old Tunisian man in connection with last week’s attack on Berlin’s Breitscheidplatz Christmas market.
According to prosecutors, the man’s number was found on the phone of Anis Amri, who killed 12 people by hijacking a truck and ramming it through the stalls.
German police raided the home and workplace of the man in the Tempelhof area of Berlin, German media report.
Officials have until December 29 to decide whether to formally arrest him.
Anis Amri was shot dead by police in Milan on December 23, four days on from the attack, after the 24-year-old Tunisian opened fire and injured an officer during a routine check.
Meanwhile, police in the Netherlands say it was highly likely Anis Amri was spotted on CCTV in Nijmegen station.
They are investigating whether he traveled there immediately after the market attack, following the discovery of an unused Dutch Sim card in his backpack.
Police believe Anis Amri was probably handed the Sim card in Nijmegen station.
From Nijmegen, it is thought Anis Amri took a six-hour bus trip to Lyon Party-Dieu station in France – from where he apparently got a train to Milan via Chambery and Turin.
The Sim card found in his backpack was issued between December 20 and 22 in one of three possible Dutch cities – Breda, Zwolle and Nijmegen, Italian media reported.
It was widely reported after the attack that German police had searched a refugee center in Emmerich, just across the border at Nijmegen.
That Anis Amri was able to travel from Berlin while subject to a European arrest warrant has raised security questions.
The nephew of the Berlin Christmas market attacker Anis Amri and two other suspects have been arrested in Tunisia, officials say.
The three, aged between 18 and 27, were members of a “terrorist cell”, and they were detained overnight, the Tunisian interior ministry said.
Tunisian-born Anis Amri, 24, was shot dead by police near the Italian city of Milan on December 23.
This week’s truck attack at the Breitscheidplatz Christmas market left 12 people dead and 49 injured.
The interior ministry statement said Anis Amri’s nephew – the son of his sister – had confessed that he had communicated with his uncle via the encrypted chat application Telegram to evade security surveillance.
It said the three-member cell had been active in the towns of Fouchana, outside Tunis, and Oueslatia near Anis Amri’s hometown of Kairouan, about 95 miles south of the capital.
The statement added that Anis Amri had sent money to his nephew to travel to Germany and join a jihadist group, and encouraged him to pledge allegiance to ISIS.
Meanwhile, intelligence services in Spain are investigating a possible internet communication between Amri and a Spanish resident on 19 December, Interior Minister Juan Ignacio Zoido told radio station COPE.
On December 23, ISIS released a video showing Anis Amri pledging allegiance to its leader Abu-Bakr al-Baghdadi.
Anis Amri was shot dead after opening fire on police officers during a routine police check in the Milan suburb of Sesto San Giovanni, after a three-day Europe-wide manhunt.
According to a United Nations report, an estimated 5,500 Tunisians – mostly young people between the ages of 18 and 35 – were fighting in the ranks of terrorist organizations in Libya, Iraq, Syria and, to a lesser extent, Mali.
In November 2016, the ministry of the interior in Tunis said about 800 fighters had returned to the country.
Berlin’s Breitscheidplatz Christmas market has reopened following the truck attack that killed 12 people and injured 49 more on December 19.
The attacker is a suspected Islamist extremist who drove the truck into a crowd.
German police have installed concrete barriers to prevent a repeat attack.
Meanwhile police have raided homes in Dortmund, but prosecutors denied reports that arrests linked to Tunisian suspect Anis Amri were made.
Anis Amri’s ID was left in the truck and now his fingerprints have been found on the door, reports say.
The truck attack victims included at least six Germans and an Israeli tourist.
Image source Twitter
German newspaper Bild quoted the federal prosecutor’s office as saying four people who were in contact with Anis Amri had been arrested.
However, a spokesman for the prosecutor’s office denied the report, saying he was not aware of any arrests.
There were also raids at a migrant centre in Emmerich in western Germany, where Anis Amri stayed briefly last year, and at addresses in Berlin.
Anis Amri’s name came to the attention of German counter-terror services last month and he reportedly moved in the circle of extremist preacher Ahmad Abdelazziz A, known as Abu Walaa, who was arrested last month and charged with supporting ISIS.
The Ruhrnachrichten news website said Anis Amri had lived in Dortmund from time to time and residents at one block of flats said he had spent time with a German of Serbian origin, Boban S., who was arrested last month along with Abu Walaa.
Anis Amri was on a US no-fly list, had researched explosives online and had communicated with ISIS at least once via the Telegram Messenger service, the New York Times reported.
ISIS has said one of its militants carried out the attack but has offered no evidence.
Anis Amri had also offered himself for a suicide attack, Spiegel magazine reported, quoting communications intercepted for the prosecution of hate preachers in Germany.
However, what he said was not believed to be explicit enough for him to be arrested, the magazine said.
Anis Amri had also been put under surveillance in Germany earlier in the year on suspicion of planning a robbery to pay for automatic weapons for use in an attack.
However, the surveillance was reportedly called off after it turned up nothing more than drug-dealing in a Berlin park and a bar brawl.
Anis Amri, 24, is said to have entered Germany in 2015 and was due to be deported in June but stayed because there was a delay in receiving paperwork from Tunisia.
He had a history of crime, serving 4 years in an Italian prison for arson and convicted in absentia in Tunisia for a violent robbery.
A police notice lists six different aliases used by Amri, born on 22 December 1992, who at times tried to pass himself off as an Egyptian or Lebanese.
The German authorities warn the suspect could be armed and dangerous and are offering a reward of up to €100,000 ($104,000) for information leading to his arrest.
It is thought Anis Amri may have been injured in a struggle with the Polish driver of the truck, found murdered in the cab.
Investigators believe the truck was hijacked on December 19 when it was parked in an industrial zone in north-western Berlin pending delivery of its cargo.
An urgent manhunt is under way across Europe’s Schengen states after prosecutors identified a suspect in the truck attack on Berlin’s Breitscheidplatz Christmas market.
A warrant was issued at midnight. Details were not given but media reports say the suspect is a Tunisian man named only as Anis A., born in 1992.
The Tunisian suspect’s residence permit was found in the truck’s cabin.
The man may have been injured in a struggle with the driver, found dead in the cab. The attack claimed 12 lives in all.
Some 150 police officers are said to be involved in searches in the Emmerich area of North Rhine-Westphalia, western Germany, where the suspect’s permit was issued.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has met her security cabinet to discuss the investigation into the attack.
The Schengen area covers most EU states plus Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland.
Image source Wikipedia
The suspect is also known to use false names, security sources told German media and Reuters.
His name was given using a German convention whereby suspects are identified by their first name and initial.
The Tunisian is reported to have traveled to Italy in 2012 and then on to Germany in 2015 where he applied for asylum and was granted temporary leave to stay in April 2016.
The suspect is said to be known to police and was briefly detained in August with fake Italian identity documents.
Sueddeutsche Zeitung reports that he moved within the circle of an Islamist preacher, Ahmad Abdelazziz A, known as Abu Walaa, who was arrested in November.
Broadcaster N-TV said measures were “now imminent” in North Rhine-Westphalia but there were no further details.
German Interior Minister Thomas De Maiziere refused to confirm or deny media reports about the man but said that officers were still investigating his residential status.
Some 49 people were also injured when the truck was driven into crowds at the Breitscheidplatz Christmas market.
ISIS said one of its militants carried out the attack but offered no evidence.
Polish citizen Lukasz Urban was found dead on the passenger seat with gunshot and stab wounds.
Investigators quoted by German media say there is evidence that, despite being stabbed, Lukasz Urban wrestled him for the steering wheel.
One official quoted by Bild said it appeared from the post-mortem examination that the driver had survived up to the attack and was shot dead when the truck came to a halt. No gun has been recovered.
Ariel Zurawski, the owner of the Polish transport company, said he had been asked to identify Lukasz Urban from photographs.
Police say they are acting on hundreds of tips from the public and are examining DNA traces from the cab of the truck.
German President Joachim Gauck visited some of the injured on December 21.
Officials released the only detained suspect on December 20, saying there was no evidence to link him to the attack.
ISIS claimed the attack through its self-styled news agency, saying it was “in response to calls to target nationals of the coalition countries”.
Prosecutor Peter Frank told reporters that the style of attack and the choice of target suggested Islamic extremism.
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