The more details emerge, the more disturbing the situation becomes. You won’t BELIEVE this…
The Berlin terror suspect was apparently being tracked by police for his links to Islamic extremists, but he ‘dropped off the map’.
German police were tracking a Tunisian asylum seeker with ‘links to Islamic extremists’ for months amid fears he was involved in an earlier terrorist plot – but lost him before the Berlin Christmas market massacre, it has emerged.
Police today revealed they are hunting Anis Amri, 23, a refugee who came to Germany earlier this year. His paperwork was found in the footwell of a lorry used to murder 12 people on Monday night.
He is probably armed, ‘highly dangerous’ and a member of a ‘large’ Islamic organisation and has weapons training abroad, security sources say.
This afternoon it emerged that he had already been under investigation for planning a ‘serious act of violence against the state’ and counter-terrorism officials last exchanged information about him in November.
The suspect, believed to have entered Europe through Italy with Syrian refugees, was also in contact with a ‘network of leading Islamist ideologists’.
This afternoon, police raided a migrant shelter in the town of Emmerich, western Germany, where he is believed to have lived.
Amri, who was born in the desert town of Tataouine in 1992 – a well-known ISIS stronghold close to the Libyan border – was apparently recently arrested for GBH but vanished before he could be charged.
In August 2016 he was arrested with a fake Italian passport and released but his phone was said to be monitored. He then disappeared in December, according to Die Welt.
Read more: Daily Mail
The strict privacy laws in Germany mean that his photo can only be released like this:
Other news sources have released full photos without his eyes covered:
Amri is still on the loose and may be armed, as the gun that was used to shoot the Polish truck driver has not been recovered.
A significant amount of blood was found in the truck, so it is believed that Amri may be seriously injured. Hospitals have been searched for any clues to his whereabouts.
Here is an infographic showing the timeline of the events, courtesy of the Daily Mail:
According to investigators, a Facebook profile in his name has ‘Likes’ to posts from Tunisian terror group Ansar al-Sharia, and had contact with Islamist militants in the North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), a region in Germany that includes the city of Cologne. He is believed to be a disciple of Abu Walaa, a Muslim speaker, who was arrested for recruiting radicals for ISIS. Amri had lived in NRW prior to moving to Berlin.
From the above Daily Mail article, Amri had applied for asylum and was rejected. Attempts were made to deport Amri to Tunisia, but because he had no documentation, the government disputed that he was their national and refused to take him.
And this is the problem with opening up the borders to allow undocumented people into the country.
