Berlin Christmas market mass murderer identified as ISIS terrorist, asylee
German police were following a Tunisian
asylum seeker with ‘links to Islamic extremists’ amid fears he was
involved in an earlier terrorist plot – but lost him before the Berlin
Christmas market massacre, it has emerged.
Police today revealed they are hunting Anis Amri, 23, a refugee who came to Germany earlier this year. His paperwork was found in the footwell of a lorry used to murder 12 people on Monday night.
He is probably armed, ‘highly dangerous’
and a member of a ‘large’ Islamic organisation and has weapons training
abroad, security sources say.
This afternoon it emerged that he had
already been under investigation for planning a ‘serious act of violence
against the state’ and counter-terrorism officials last exchanged
information about him in November.
The suspect was also in contact with a ‘network of leading Islamist ideologists’.
This afternoon, police raided a migrant shelter in the town of Emmerich, western Germany, where he is believed to have lived.
Amri, who was born in the desert town of Tataouine in 1992 – a well-known ISIS stronghold close to the Libyan border – was apparently recently arrested for GBH but vanished before he could be charged.
In August 2016 he was arrested with a fake
Italian passport and released but his phone was said to be monitored.
He then disappeared in December, according to Die Welt.
A Facebook profile in his name shows
‘likes’ linked to Tunisian terror group Ansar al-Sharia, a Tunisian
group with followers linked to extremists who murdered 22 at Tunis’
Bardo Museum in March 2015 and then 39 tourists at a beach resort in
Sousse.
He was in contact with Islamist militants
in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and was known to German security
agencies, the state’s Interior Minister Ralf Jaeger said.
The suspect had applied for asylum in
Germany and his application was rejected in July. Attempts to deport him
to Tunisia failed as he did not have identification papers, and
Tunisian authorities disputed whether he was their national.
He had moved from NRW to Berlin in
February 2016 and sought to make the German capital his new home, Jaeger
said, adding that the suspect used different names.
Despite an unfolding international manhunt
the first pictures of him released in Germany have his eyes
deliberately covered, thought to be because of strict privacy laws
there. MailOnline has uncovered unblurred images.
Police are believed to have found blood in the truck’s cab and now assume that the suspect may be badly injured.
Squads of officers have been to every
hospital in Berlin and the surrounding state of Brandenburg. They also
arrested another unnamed suspect in connection with the terror attack
but have since ruled him out.
Amri was living in Berlin but
a police operation is now underway in North Rhine-Westphalia – the
industrial region of Germany containing Cologne, Dortmund and Bonn. His
ID was issued on the town of Kleve close to the border with the
Netherlands and Belgium.
The atrocity could be a political disaster
for Mrs Merkel, who will seek a historic fourth term as chancellor next
year. She has staked much of her political capital on opening Germany’s
doors to refugees.
Amri is allegedly a disciple of Abu Walaa,
arrested in Hildesheim last month for recruiting radicals into the
ranks of Isis. Walaa has previously spoken at mosques in London.
He was arrested along with five members of
a terrorist recruiting network operating on behalf of the so-called
Islamic State, according to prosecutors.
The arrests took place in the states of
North Rhine-Westphalia and Lower Saxony. The network is alleged
recruited and provided logistical support for local volunteers making
their way from Germany to Syria.
Iraqi citizen known Abu Walaa, 32, or
Ahmad Abdelaziz as he is also known, is a leading figure of the movement
in Germany, and many of his followers have made their way to Syria.
Walaa has been at the centre of a
year-long investigation, which also yielded arrests in the city of
Hildesheim in July 2016. The arrest appears to have been aided by a
former IS fighter, Anil O, 22, who identified Walaa as Germany’s ISIS
leader.
Amri’s home town in north Africa is famous
for being the inspiration for Luke Skywalker’s home planet in Star Wars
but has become an ISIS stronghold for jihadis attacking targets in
nearby Libya.
It came as it was revealed the Pakistani
asylum seeker held in the aftermath of the Berlin Christmas market
massacre was held because he accidentally jumped a red light.
Naved Baluch, 23, who arrived in Germany a
year ago, was seized and blamed for Monday night’s carnage after
witnesses saw him commit a traffic offence a mile away.
Detectives, who flew him out of Berlin and
across the country to Karlsruhe to question him, took 18 hours to
realise Mr Baluch, who had no blood on his clothes and no injuries, did
not drive a lorry through crowds to kill 12 and wound 48 more.
It was only then the security services
warned the public that the real ISIS killer was on the run with a
gun. Today Berlin is in mourning as police warned ‘vigilance’ is needed
because a second attack could be imminent.
Despite bungling the initial investigation
police insist DNA, GPS and mobile phone data tied to the lorry used to
murder and maim could lead to an arrest today.
A BBC journalist made the red light claims on the Today programme this morning.
‘He was the wrong man,’ said a source in
the German security services. ‘The true perpetrator is still armed, at
large and can cause further damage.’
