Europe scrambles to find suspect
Fingerprints and ID in truck used during Berlin attack suggest manhunt is on track
BERLIN— German public broadcaster RBB reports that the fugitive suspect in the deadly truck rampage at a Berlin Christmas market was seen on surveillance footage visiting a mosque before and after the attack.
RBB reported Thursday that Anis Amri was filmed exiting a mosque in Berlin on Dec.14 and15. He was again filmed hours after Monday’s attack, at the same mosque in the capital’s Moabit district.
The mosque was raided by police Thursday, two days after documents naming the 24-year-old Tunisian were found in the cab of the truck that smashed into a Christmas market in the west of the city, killing 12 and injuring dozens more.
The newspaper Tagesspiegel reported Thursday that investigators believe Amri suffered facial cuts in the attack and may still be in Berlin.
Police on Thursday raided properties in Berlin and the western state of North Rhine–Westphalia where Amri is believed to have spent time. They also swooped on a bus in the southwestern city of Heilbronn after receiving a tip that turned up nothing. No arrests were made, said Frauke Koehler, a spokesperson for federal prosecutors.
Even so, investigators were increasingly confident that Amri carried out the rampage after finding his fingerprints in the cab of the truck that had been hijacked.
“We can tell you today that there are additional indications this suspect is with high probability really the perpetrator,” Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said after visiting the Federal Criminal Police Office with Chancellor Angela Merkel.
“Fingerprints were found in the cab and there are other, additional indications that suggest this,” he told reporters. “It is all the more important that the search is successful as soon as possible.”
German authorities have been on the defensive after it emerged that Amri had been considered a threat for months, subjected to surveillance and put in pre-deportation detention in August, only to be released due to paperwork problems.
The fact that the attack is alleged to have been carried out by a man who came to Germany seeking asylum last year also prompted fresh criticism of Merkel’s decision to allow hundreds of thousands of migrants into the country without thorough security checks.
While police have noted that most migrants are law-abiding, a number of high-profile crimes, including the New Year’s Eve assaults in Cologne and several violent attacks over the summer, have stoked anti-migrant feeling in Germany. Two attacks in July, along with the truck attack in Berlin, were claimed by Daesh, also known as ISIS and ISIL.