German police on Wednesday detained a Tunisian they believe “could have been involved” in the Berlin Christmas market attack, with alleged links to Anis Amri, the suspected assailant shot dead in Italy last week.
The arrest was the first in Germany by investigators seeking to discover if Amri had accomplices in the Dec. 19 attack when he allegedly hijacked a truck and drove it into a Berlin Christmas market, killing 12 people.
“The deceased suspect Anis Amri had saved the number of this 40-year-old Tunisian national in his phone. The investigations indicate that he could have been involved in the attack,” the German prosecutor’s office said in a statement.
The suspect was taken into custody early on Wednesday after federal police officers searched his Berlin home and work premises.
“The extent to which the suspicions against the detained person can be confirmed remains subject to further investigation,” the statement added.
Amri, 24, went on the run and was the focus of a four-day manhunt before being shot dead by police in Milan, northern Italy, after opening fire first.
German police said they found his fingerprints and his temporary residence permit in the cab of the truck used in the Berlin attack, next to the body of its registered Polish driver, who was killed with a gunshot to the head.
The Berlin rampage was claimed by the Islamic State (IS) group, which released a video on Friday last week in which Amri is shown pledging allegiance to IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
More than a week after the attack, investigators were still battling to find out if Amri had help before and after the assault.
Three other men, including Amri’s nephew, were arrested by Tunisian authorities on Friday last week.
On Wednesday, a spokesman at the anti-terrorism unit told reporters that their probe was ongoing, declining to give further details.
Separately, investigators came closer to tracing Amri’s escape route to Milan.
The Tunisian had boarded an overnight bus in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, near the German border, that took him to Lyon in central France, sources close to the investigation said.
“We believe he was in Nijmegen, most likely last Wednesday,” Dutch public prosecution service spokesman Wim de Bruin said.
“There are video images and it’s very likely him,” De Bruin said, adding that “it’s most likely here where he received a SIM card,” which Italian police later found on his body.
Amri got off the bus at the Gare de la Part-Dieu railway station in France, one of the sources said.
Surveillance cameras filmed Amri at the station on Thursday last week.
From there, he took a train to the French Alpine town of Chambery before heading to Milan.
A train ticket from Lyon to Milan via Turin was also found on Amri’s body.
However, investigators are still trying to determine how Amri was able to leave Berlin and cross most of Germany to reach the Netherlands, and whether he received assistance.
German magazine Focus quoted unnamed security sources as saying Amri had been texting messages and sending photographs to “Islamist friends” only 10 minutes before the attack.
Several German media also quoted government sources as saying the truck came to an automatic stop thanks to the activation of an emergency braking system.
Amri was known to Tunisian police as a juvenile delinquent who drank and took drugs.
In 2011, he left his home country for Italy. There he spent four years in prison for starting a fire in a refugee center, during which time he was apparently radicalized.
Italian police on Wednesday raided two houses in the town of Aprilia near Rome that Amri had lived in before moving to Germany, police said.
After serving his sentence he made his way to Germany last year, taking advantage of Europe’s Schengen system of open borders — as he did on his return to Italy last week.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese