Massacre suspect had been on radar

AN international manhunt was today under way for the prime suspect in the Berlin Christmas market massacre amid questions over why he was free to carry out the attack.

German officials had decided that Anis Amri was a threat long before a truck ploughed into the market on Monday, leaving 12 people dead and 48 injured, including 12 with very serious wounds.

The Tunisian had been kept under covert surveillance for six months this year before the operation was halted, leaving critics asking how closely German authorities are monitoring the hundreds of known Islamic extremists in the country.

The issue puts new pressure on Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is running for re-election next year. Critics are lambasting her for allowing hundreds of thousands of asylum-seekers to enter the country, allegedly without proper security checks. Among them was Amri, a convicted criminal in both Tunisia and Italy with little chance of getting asylum, who successfully evaded deportation from Germany even as the authorities rejected his asylum application and deemed the 24-year-old a possible jihadi threat.

After German media published photos of him and a partial name, prosecutors issued a public appeal for information along with the promise of a €100,000 (£84,000) reward for his arrest.

Within hours it emerged the man authorities warned could be “violent and armed” had in fact been on their radar and known to them for months as someone with ties to Islamic extremists who used at least six different names and three nationalities.

The authorities had initially focused the investigation on a Pakistani man detained shortly after the attack, but released him a day later for lack of evidence. After finding documents belonging to Amri in the cab of the truck they issued a notice to other European countries seeking his arrest.

According to Ralf Jaeger, interior minister of North Rhine-Westphaliastate, Amri arrived in Germany in July 2015.

The Islamic State group, which claimed responsibility for Monday’s attack, did not identify Amri as the man witnesses saw fleeing from the truck, but described him as “a soldier of the Islamic State” who “carried out the attack in response to calls for targeting citizens of the Crusader coalition”.

Germany’s interior minister Thomas de Maiziere said he was “a suspect, not necessarily the perpetrator”, adding: “We are still investigating in all directions.”

Anis Amri