Twelve people were killed and 48 others injured in the truck attack on the Christmas market near iconic Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church in west Berlin. Law enforcement officials initially detained a suspect, only to release him and admit that the real criminal was still “at large”.
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Speaking after Italian police shot dead a rejected Tunisian asylum seeker linked to the truck attack at a Christmas market in Berlin, Merkel vowed to expel failed asylum seekers more quickly in the future. He had been under police surveillance between March and September of this year. Islamic State claimed responsibility for that attack, which was carried out by a Tunisian living in France.
Since he couldn’t be deported, Amri was issued a stay of deportation paper, which is the document police found in the truck he used to murder 12 people.
ISIS has previously released pre-attack videos of jihadists who have carried out deadly attacks after pledging allegiance to the group.
Witnesses saw only one man flee from the truck after it rammed into the crowded Christmas market Monday evening.
Mr Amri had been under investigation for planning an act of violence against the state, said Ralf Jaeger, the interior minister of Germany’s North Rhine-Westphalia state.
Media reports in Italy say he was on anti-terrorism police’s radar as a potential Islamist radical during his time in prison but was not considered a high-priority subject for monitoring.
“We will now urgently review to what extent the measures taken by the state need to be changed”, Merkel said in a statement to reporters in Berlin.
The radio reported on its website that security sources had named the suspect as Anis Amri from Oueslatia in rural central Tunisia.
The man, a Pakistani citizen who came to Germany previous year, had been picked up based upon a description of the man who jumped out of the truck and fled. The other police officer then shot Amri dead.
A European-wide manhunt was launched for Amri after Monday’s attack, but Milan police said they had no intelligence he was in the city.
“The case of Amri raises a series of questions, not just about the deed itself but also about the time since he came to Germany in July 2015”, Ms. Merkel said.
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Earlier, fingerprints from a Tunisian migrant were found inside the truck, German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said. Elyakim was visiting Berlin with her husband Rami and had been missing since the attack.
