Anger in Germany grows
- Reward notice issued for information on Tunisian Anis Amri
- Four people arrested in connection with suspect
German authorities came under fire yesterday after it emerged that the prime suspect in Berlin's deadly truck attack, a rejected Tunisian asylum seeker, was known as a potentially dangerous jihadist.
Prosecutors have issued a Europe-wide wanted notice for 24-year-old Anis Amri, offering a 100,000-euro ($104,000) reward for information leading to his arrest and warning he "could be violent and armed".
A temporary residence permit believed to belong to Amri, alleged to have links to the radical Islamist scene, was found in the cab of the 40-tonne lorry that rammed through a packed Christmas market in Berlin Monday, killing 11.
The twelfth victim, the hijacked truck's Polish driver, was found shot in the cab. The daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung said that investigators had also found Amri's fingerprints on the door of the truck.
Police in the western German city of Dortmund arrested four people who had been in contact with Amri, media reports said, but a spokesman for the chief federal prosecutor denied that and said he would give no further details on the operation to avoid jeopardising it, reports Reuters.
In a sign of defiance, Berliners flocked to the Christmas market at the central Breitscheid square which reopened for the first time since the articulated truck cut a swathe of death and destruction through the festive crowd.
Organisers dimmed garish lights and turned down the party music but began serving mulled wine and opened the traditional market huts, as visitors left a sea of flowers and candles for the victims and signs reading "Love Not Hate".
Amid an unobtrusive police presence, stony-faced vendors embraced each other, some weeping as they opened their stands, reports AFP.
The attack, Germany's deadliest in recent years, has been claimed by the Islamic State group. Italy yesterday confirmed that one of its nationals, a young woman called Fabrizia Di Lorenzo, also died in the attack.
The New York Times reported, citing US officials, that Amri had done online research on how to make explosive devices and had communicated with IS at least once, via Telegram Messenger. He was also on a US no-fly list.
But as the manhunt intensified, questions surfaced about how the suspect had been able to slip through the net, avoiding arrest and deportation despite being on the radar of several security agencies.
The top-selling daily Bild's frontpage headline screamed "Deportation Failure!" while local tabloid B.Z. said starkly "They knew him. They did nothing" next to a photo of the dark-haired Amri.
Meanwhile, a British truck driver has raised nearly £50,000 via crowdfunding for the family of the Polish driver found dead in the truck used in the attack on the Christmas market.
Comments