Suspected Berlin
Attacker Anis Amri
Officials
Lost Track of A Man Identified as Dangerous
German
police are conducting a manhunt for Anis Amri. The Tunisian national
is the main suspect in the terrorist attack on a Berlin Christmas
market on Monday night. The authorities had been monitoring him for
months, but he still managed to go underground.
By Roman Lehberger,
Jörg Diehl and Christoph Sydow
December 22, 2016
01:59 AM
More than 48 hours
after the attack on a Berlin Christmas market, one or more
perpetrators are still at large. And since early evening on
Wednesday, police have been conducting a manhunt for a man whose
immigration document was found under the driver's seat of the
semi-truck used to commit the attack outside the Kaiser Wilhelm
Memorial Church in the German capital city. He is now considered the
main suspect in the attack.
The document was
issued to Anis Amri, born in Tunisia in December 1992. The Federal
Office of Criminal Investigation is offering a reward of up to
100,000 euros for information leading to his arrest.
Amri reportedly
entered Germany through the city of Freiburg in July 2015. He had
been under observation by security officials for some time. An entry
relating to an undercover investigation of the man on Feb. 5 states,
"suspected ties with IS (Islamic State)" and "intensive
monitoring of the subject." Earlier this year, the authorities
classified the man as a "potential threat," a category used
by police to describe people the authorities believe could strike at
any time. The German Interior Ministry has stated that 549 people
across the country are currently classified as potential threats.
They are the subject of frequent monitoring.
The 'Imam without a
Face'
"This person
attracted the attention of various security officials in Germany
because of his contacts with the radical Islamist scene," Ralf
Jäger, the interior minister of the western state of North
Rhine-Westphalia said in the afternoon. SPIEGEL has learned that Amri
was apparently communicating with well-known hate preacher Ahmad
Abdulaziz Abdullah A., aka "Abu Walaa." The 32-year-old is
suspected of being the leader of a network that recruited members and
supporters of the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group between January
and July 2015.
"Abu Walaa"
had been preaching for years in a mosque run by the Hildesheim
German-language Islamic Circle (DIK). In late July, police in the
northern state of Lower Saxony conducted a raid against the mosque
congregation, and in November Abu Walaa, known as the "imam
without a face," was arrested.
His network also
included Duisburg Salafist Hasan C., who was allegedly in contact
with the people who bombed a Sikh temple in the city of Essen in
April. The Federal Prosecutor's Office has also been investigating C.
for months. His travel agency in Duisburg's Hochemmerich neighborhood
has a reputation as a contact point for jihadists.
Investigators have
also learned that Amri frequented the Dortmund mosque of Boban S.,
who, according to federal prosecutors, is also part of the Abu Walaa
network and has provided Islamists with ideological training.
According to Jäger,
security officials exchanged information about Amri through the
German government's counter-terrorism center (GTAZ), most recently in
November. The State Office of Criminal Investigation in North Rhine
Westphalia initiated "proceedings with the Federal Public
Prosecutor against Amri based on the suspicion he was preparing to
commit a serious act of subversive violence."
The investigation
was apparently conducted by the local chief prosecutor's office in
Berlin, and all the information about the Tunisian available to
authorities in North Rhine-Westphalia was passed on the Berlin
authorities. Amri apparently spent most of his time in Berlin
beginning in February 2016 but, more recently, had also been in North
Rhine-Westphalia "briefly."
"This person
was quite obviously highly mobile," said Jäger.
Little League Drug
Dealer?
The focus of the
investigation in Berlin had been information indicating that Amri
"was planning a break-in in order to obtain money to buy
automatic weapons that could possibly be used by accomplices to be
found later for an attack," the Public Prosecutor's Office in
the capital informed a court. In response, the court provided its
authorization for Amri's communications to be wiretapped and for
general surveillance of the subject. The Berlin Public Prosecutor's
Office said that surveillance measures had produced evidence that
Amri "might be active as a little league drug dealer" in
the city's Görlitzer Park, a hotbed of drug sales in Berlin. They
said Amri was also believed to have gotten involved in a physical
dispute in a bar "presumably based on a conflict within the
dealer scene."
Still, the
investigation yielded no evidence "verifying the original
allegation or corroborating this or another state-security relevant
criminal charge." This led prosecutors to end the surveillance
measures against Amri in September. At that point in time, Amri was
no longer believed to be in Berlin or to be in touch with his former
contact person, the Public Prosecutor's Office in Berlin stated on
Wednesday evening.
Deportation Failed
Because of a Lack of Documents
The man's request
for asylum was reportedly rejected in June 2016.
On July 30, police
intercepted Amri during a check on a long-distance bus traveling in
the city of Friedrichshafen. The police determined during the check
that the Tunisian was subject to deportation. Following a ruling by
the district court in Ravensburg, the man was moved to the local
detention center pending his deportation. Two days later, however,
the man was released and the deportation did not get carried out.
Officials were
unable to complete the deportation because the Tunisian didn't have a
passport and required passport replacement documents from the
authorities in Tunisia before he could be repatriated, Jäger said.
"Tunisian authorities provided these today (Wednesday),"
the SPD politician stated, adding, "I do not want to comment any
further on this circumstance." Before that, Tunis had long
denied that the man was in fact Tunisian.
IS claimed
responsibility for the attack long before the manhunt for Amri began.
But the statement, released on the Internet, contained no information
whatsoever about the attacker. This suggests that IS leadership did
not coordinate the attack with Amri.
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