German authorities yesterday faced criticism after it emerged that the prime suspect in Berlin’s deadly truck attack, a rejected Tunisian asylum seeker, was known as a potentially dangerous militant.
German prosecutors have issued a Europe-wide wanted notice for 24-year-old Anis Amri, offering a 100,000 euro (US$104,000) reward for information leading to his arrest and warning that he “could be violent and armed.”
Asylum office papers believed to belong to Amri, alleged to have links to Muslim militant groups, were found in the cab of the 40-tonne truck that rammed through a crowded Christmas market in Berlin on Monday, killing 11.
The 12th person killed, the hijacked truck’s Polish driver, was found shot in the cab.
Police on Wednesday searched a refugee center in Emmerich where Amri stayed a few months ago, as well as two apartments in Berlin, reports said.
As the Europe-wide hunt intensified, questions were also raised about how the suspect had been able to avoid arrest and deportation, despite being on the radar of several security agencies.
“The authorities had him in their crosshairs and he still managed to vanish,” Der Spiegel weekly said on its Web site.
The Sueddeutsche Zeitung said police wasted time focusing on a Pakistani suspect immediately after the truck assault, in what turned out to be a false lead.
“It took a while before the federal police turned to Amri as a suspect,” it said.
The attack, Germany’s deadliest in recent years, has been claimed by the Islamic State group.
Twenty-four people remained in hospital, 14 of whom were seriously injured.
Germany has boosted security measures following the carnage, beefing up the police presence at train stations, airports and at its borders with Poland and France.
German officials said they had already been investigating Amri, suspecting he was planning an attack.
North Rhine-Westphalia State Minister of the Interior Ralf Jaeger said counter-terrorism officials had exchanged information about Amri, most recently last month, and a probe had been launched suspecting he was preparing “a serious act of violence against the state.”
Berlin prosecutors said separately that Amri had been suspected of planning a burglary to raise cash to buy automatic weapons, “possibly to carry out an attack.”
After keeping tabs on him from March until September, investigators failed to find evidence of a plot, learning only that Amri was a small-time drug dealer, and the surveillance was stopped.
In Tunisia, Amri’s family expressed disbelief on hearing that he was wanted across Europe.
“I’m in shock, and can’t believe it’s him who committed this crime,” his brother Abdelkader Amri told reporters. “If he’s guilty, he deserves every condemnation. We reject terrorism and terrorists — we have no dealings with terrorists.”
Amri left Tunisia after the 2011 revolution and lived in Italy for three years, a Tunisian security source told reporters.
Italian media said he served time in prison there for setting fire to a school.
He arrived in Germany in July last year, but his application for asylum was rejected in June.
However, his deportation got caught up in red tape with Tunisia, which denied he was a citizen.
The apparent security failings in the case triggered fresh criticism of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s refugee policy, which has seen more than 1 million people arrive since last year.
The record influx has fueled support for the AfD party, which has accused Merkel of endangering the country.
Even within the chancellor’s own Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party voices of dissent are growing louder.
“Nationwide, there are a large number of refugees about whom we don’t know where they’re from or what their names are. And that’s a potential major security issue,” said Saarland State Minister of the Interior Klaus Bouillon, a CDU member.
Germany had until now been spared the devastating carnage that has struck France and Belgium.
It has had a spate of smaller attacks, including two in July that left 15 people injured.
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