Berlin Christmas Market Attacker Shot Dead in Milan

Berlin attack suspect confirmed dead after Milan shootout – Italian interior minister

Italian Police officers work next to the body of Anis Amri, the suspect in the Berlin Christmas market truck attack, in a suburb of the northern Italian city of Milan, Italy December 23, 2016. © Stringer / Reuters

Anis Amri, a Tunisian national wanted throughout Europe after the truck attack on a Christmas market in Berlin, was killed by the Italian Police during a shootout in Milan, the country’s interior minister has confirmed.

Italian Interior Minister Marco Minniti has confirmed that Anis Amri, wanted after the truck attack on a Berlin Christmas market, was killed during a shootout with police officers in the suburbs of Milan on Friday.

Minniti told a news conference in Rome that “without any shadow of a doubt” the man was Amri, whose identity has been confirmed by fingerprints.

The minister said the officers were on routine patrol and stopped Amri in a Milan suburb on Friday morning. The man pulled out a pistol and opened fire, injuring one of the officers, but was shot dead as the patrol returned fire. Minniti did not elaborate on the issue, adding that his agency is in contact with the Germans, and further developments may come soon.

Peter Frank, Germany’s federal prosecutor, told reporters later on Friday that the investigation is far from over. Investigators will focus on uncovering Amri’s contacts to determine if he had accomplices or was a member of a terrorist network.

He added that it is also crucial to know how Amri had got to Italy despite suggestions that his injuries would have prevented him from covering long distances.

Meanwhile, Milan police say they had received no information warning them that Amri could be in the city, according to Reuters.

“We had no intelligence that he could be in Milan,” Police Chief Antonio De Iesu said at a news conference. “They had no perception that it could be him, otherwise they would have been much more cautious.”

Earlier on Friday, Italian authorities said Amri was killed in a shootout with police in Milan on Thursday night, according to Reuters, citing a security source. The surprise report first appeared in the Italian magazine Panorama.

Conflicting news reports previously suggested the opposite. The German Police claimed that the suspect was hiding in Berlin. On Thursday, RBB released CCTV footage showing him at a local mosque one day after the attack. The police said Amri was injured, and therefore would not risk travelling too far.

But then, Berlin Police have botched this case right from the start. De Maiziere need to investigate how badly this file was handled.

On Friday, a man whose appearance matched that of the suspect was spotted in the northern Danish city of Aalborg, local police said in a tweet. According to police, the man, aged between 20 and 30, was “wearing a black hat, glasses, black beard and was unshaven.”

Police warned people to keep away from the area where he was spotted.

Investigators believe that Tunisian suspect Anis Amri was indeed behind the wheel of the truck that plowed into the Christmas market in Berlin on Monday, killing 12 and injuring 48. Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said that fingerprints and other “new evidence” made it “highly probable” that Amri was the actual perpetrator of the Monday attack.

Berlin Police Behaving Very Strangely

Internet abuzz after PEGIDA founder shared info on

Berlin attacker long before German police

Workers clear the site of the Christmas market in Berlin, Germany, December 21, 2016, after a truck ploughed through a crowd at the Christmas market on Monday night. © Christian Mang / Reuters

PEGIDA founder Lutz Bachmann, who tweeted that the primary suspect in the Berlin Christmas market attack was “a Tunisian Muslim” a day ahead of authorities, triggered speculation about his sources of information and landed police into hot water for lagging behind.

Bachman posted the tweet at 10:16pm local time on December 19, citing “internal police information” he confirmed with Germany’s Public Prosecutor General. A truck ploughed into the Berlin Christmas market crowd, killing 12 people and injuring 48 more, shortly after 8:00pm on Monday.

On Tuesday, police identified the suspect they had detained as a 23-year old Pakistani asylum-seeker. Before that no information other than that “the situation is unclear” had been available. The detainee denied he was involved in the attack and was released later the same day.

Police reported that they found a young Tunisian man's identity documents in the cabin of the truck used in the attack only on Wednesday afternoon.

That's a day and a half after the massacre and nearly a day and a half after Bachman Tweeted about the suspect.

After that Bachman produced a second tweet that said, “so my info 1h after the attack was right? Police are looking for a Tunisian man.”

It was actually 2 hours after the attack.

Later, a European arrest warrant for the suspect, of Tunisian descent, was issued by the Federal Prosecutor.

The situation raised questions about how Bachman managed to get ahead of authorities as well as what took so long for police to start searching for the right suspect.

In response to a storm of questions regarding his informants, Bachman replied on Twitter that the only thing one needs in such cases is “the right connections and a whistleblower that is sick of the lies.”

However, later, Bachman backtracked tweeting, “here is the truth, I only used my crystal ball, no informants!”

Sure! Were you lying about the Public Prosecutor's confirmation? Can anyone tell the truth anymore?

German police reportedly denied all the allegations that a source from law enforcement could have leaked information to Bachman.

“This clearly, one hundred percent impossible. Berlin police came across the ID documents indicating that the perpetrator was a Tunisian on Tuesday afternoon,” police spokesperson Winfrid Wenzel said, according to FAZ. 

But Bachman reported it Monday evening? And, apparently the Public Prosecutor confirmed it. So who's lying? Was it a lucky guess by Bachman? Why would he choose Tunisia when it could have been someone from a dozen countries?

It seems clear that the police went down a  rabbit hole with the arrest and interrogation of the Pakistani man, and are too embarrassed to admit it. Meanwhile, they could have had the information on Amri out nearly 36 hours before they did. That's a lot of time to give a terrorist to disappear. If police had released the warrant at the same time as Bachman Tweeted, he would still have been in Germany. God only knows where he is now! He could be anywhere in Europe.

The attacker was identified as 24-year-old Tunisian Anis Amri, who had been tracked by German authorities for months before surveillance operations were called off in September.

Amri arrived in Germany in 2015 at the peak of the refugee influx after he served a term in Italy, Ralf Jaeger, the interior minister of North Rhine-Westphalia said, according to AP.

In July 2016 his refugee application was declined. However, he was not immediately deported right as he did not have any valid identity papers. In August, migration authorities made an effort to help Amri secure a replacement passport.

Amri was also being tracked by US intelligence, according to the New York Times. He had reportedly searched for information on making explosive devices and had communicated with IS at least once, via the Telegram messenger app, said an American security official who spoke on condition of anonymity. He was also on a US no-fly list.