Arrest warrant issued for Berlin attack suspect

A European arrest warrant was issued on Wednesday for Tunisian citizen Anis Amri, 24, two days after the truck attack on a Berlin Christmas market in which at least 12 people were killed and dozens of others were injured. Amri is feared to be armed and dangerous, and appears to have used six different aliases and three different nationalities.

Germany’s security services are under intense pressure to explain Amri, who was under covert surveillance for several months and known to multiple intelligence agencies for apparent ties to Islamic extremists, appeared to fall through the cracks and allegedly carry out Monday night’s attack.

According to a senior politician in the region where he registered as an asylum seeker in Germany in July 2015, an investigation had been launched earlier this year suspecting Amri of preparing “a serious act of violence against the state”. He had been added to the government’s central terror watchlist in January.

Amri was already known to several security agencies because of his links to the radical Islamist scene, according to Ralf Jäger, the interior minister for North Rhine-Westphalia, where Amri had first registered.

According to Amri’s watchlist file, extracts from which were quoted by broadcaster Bayerischer Rundfunk, he was suspected of recruiting collaborators for “an attack with an Islamist motivation” and was trying to obtain large-calibre automatic rifles through contacts in France.

However, the Tunisian suspect dropped off the security agencies’ radar in November this year, possibly because of miscommunication between authorities in Berlin and North Rhine-Westphalia.

A wanted poster issued by Germany’s federal prosecutor offered a reward of up to €100,000 for members of the public who helped to locate Amri, who is described as having worn dark clothing, bright shoes and a white scarf on Monday night.

“Caution: he could be violent and armed,” the notice warned. “A reward of up to €100,000 has been issued for information leading to the suspect’s arrest.”

German interior minister Thomas de Maizière said that Amri was being sought in Germany and across Europe’s border-free travel zone. “This is a suspect, not necessarily the perpetrator,” he said, after briefing the German parliament’s domestic affairs committee. “We are still investigating in all directions.”

Amri’s parents were reportedly being questioned by Tunisian authorities.

The news that Amri is a suspect again raises difficult questions for the authorities. It follows an admission by German police that they had detained the wrong man in the immediate aftermath of the attack – releasing 23-year-old Pakistani asylum seeker on Tuesday after he spent hours in custody.

Isis has claimed responsibility for the attack, although there is no evidence yet for its claim. Through its Amaq news agency, the jihadi group claimed the attacker was a “soldier of the Islamic State”. The phrasing matches that used to claim previous attacks, such as the incident in Orlando, Florida, in June when 49 people were killed at a gay nightclub.