TRUCKER FIEND ON LOOSE
Berlin cops at a loss after clearing suspect
The terrorist who slaughtered 12 people and injured dozens more in a horrific truck attack at a Berlin Christmas market is still at large — as German authorities released their former chief suspect Tuesday.
The announcement that the suspect, a 23-year-old Pakistani asylum-seeker, had been sprung sent a new wave of fear among citizens. Authorities urged people to remain “particularly vigilant” and to report “suspicious movement.”
“We need to work on the assumption that an armed perpetrator is still on the loose. As a result of this, we are on high alert,” said Holger Münch, head of the federal criminal police, The Guardian reported.
Meanwhile, ISIS officially claimed responsibility for the Monday-night attack, calling the killer a “soldier” for the terror group.
“A soldier of the Islamic State carried out the Berlin operation in response to appeals to target citizens of the Crusader coalition,” the Amaq news agency posted online, Agence FrancePresse reported.
While Germany is not involved in combat operations against ISIS, it does have fighter jets stationed in Turkey in support of the coalition fighting militants in Syria.
Federal prosecutors said the released suspect denied involvement in the attack — and witnesses who had followed the truck driver from the scene had lost track of him.
The suspect, identified as Naved B, matched descriptions of the driver who plowed into the crowded market, but probers were unable to prove he was in the big rig during the attack.
Under German law, prosecutors have until the end of the calendar day following an arrest to seek a formal arrest warrant keeping a suspect in custody.
Police were fairly certain soon after arresting Naved that he was not the attacker because he had no traces of blood on him but the truck cab was splattered in it, The Guardian reported.
Police have not found a handgun believed used to kill a Polish truck driver who was en route to deliver steel beams in the truck until it went missing, he said.
Lukasz Urban, 37, found dead in the truck cab, was considered a victim and not a suspect.
Münch said more than one person may have been behind the atrocity. “We have not found the weapon, and that leads us to being in a high state of alert. Our investigations are ongoing to see whether there are other perpetrators that we need to arrest,” he said.