Man held in terror probe released

BERLIN — A Tunisian man detained on suspicion of involvement in last week’s Berlin truck attack was released Thursday after investigators determined that he wasn’t in contact with the main suspect immediately before the rampage.

The 40-year-old was detained in Berlin on Wednesday. Federal prosecutors said at the time that his telephone number was saved in suspect Anis Amri’s cellphone and that they suspected he may have been involved.

Prosecutors’ spokeswoman Frauke Koehler said Thursday that investigators had suspected Amri might have sent him a message and a picture over a messenger service shortly before the Dec. 19 attack on a Christmas market.

But “further investigations determined that the man who was provisionally detained isn’t this possible contact person of Anis Amri, so he had to be released from custody,” Koehler told reporters.

Amri, a 24-year-old Tunisian, is believed to have driven the truck that plowed into the market, killing 12 people. His fingerprints and wallet were found in the truck.

Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attack and released a video showing Amri pledging allegiance to its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Investigators have determined that the video is genuine, Koehler said.

Amri was killed in a shootout Friday with Italian police in a Milan suburb after they stopped him for a routine identity check.

Prosecutors believe he travelled via the Netherlands and France, Koehler said. In Milan, he was carrying a .22 pistol that he used to shoot a police officer, hitting him in the shoulder.

A bullet found in the truck used in the attack was also from a .22 firearm, but ballistic tests still have to confirm whether it was the same weapon, according to Koehler.

Koehler confirmed German media reports that the truck apparently was slowed by an automatic braking system, bringing it to a standstill after 70 to 80 metres and preventing worse carnage.

German authorities had put Amri under covert surveillance for six months earlier this year following a warning from intelligence agencies that he might be planning an attack. The surveillance ended in September after police found no evidence of his alleged plans.

FRANZISKA KRAUFMANN/ASSOCIATED PRESS Frauke Koehler, seen during a press conference last week, says a Tunisian man who was detained in connection with the Berlin truck attack on Dec. 19 has been released, after authorities found he was not the man contacted by Anis Amri before the attack.