Germany arrests Tunisian in raid – ‘Same gun used in hijack, shootout’

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BERLIN, Jan 4, (Agencies): German authorities have taken into custody a 26-year-old Tunisian man and are investigating whether he played a role in the truck attack that killed 12 people in the German capital before Christmas, a spokeswoman for the chief federal prosecutor said on Wednesday. Police on Tuesday evening searched the room of the man who had dinner with the Tunisian main suspect Anis Amri, 24, a day before Amri ploughed a truck through a Berlin Christmas market on Dec 19, the spokeswoman said. “This contact person is a 26-year-old Tunisian. We are investigating him for possible participation in the attack,” the spokeswoman told reporters.

The spokeswoman said there was not sufficient evidence at this point to charge the man for any role in the attack. However, the Berlin state prosecutor’s office said in a separate statement that it detained the 26-year-old man on Tuesday evening for fraud involving social benefits. The chief federal prosecutor’s spokeswoman said authorities were evaluating communications devices seized during that raid and the search of an apartment belonging to another man who also had contact with Amri.

Investigators believe the Berlin apartment they raided was home to a former flatmate of Amri’s, who they suspect was also in contact with him shortly before the attack. The search was aimed at gleaning more information about Amri’s behaviour before and after the attack, the prosecutor’s office said. The office added it would give an update on the investigation during Wednesday afternoon.

Separately, the Sueddeutsche Zeitung reported that German investigators identified Amri as a threat in February last year but decided it was unlikely he would carry out an attack. The German authorities had determined Amri posed a threat after receiving intelligence showing that in early February he had been in contact with suspected members of Islamic State and offered himself as a suicide bomber, the Sueddeutsche reported. Officials at the German Interior Ministry were not immediately available to comment on the report.

A gun fired at Milan police by the man suspected of attacking a Christmas market in Berlin last month was the same one used to kill the driver of the truck that ploughed into revellers in the German capital, Italian police said on Wednesday. Anis Amri, a failed asylum seeker from Tunisia, was shot dead in a gunfight with police in the Milan suburb of Sesto San Giovanni on Dec 23, days after he allegedly killed 12 people in Berlin.

Amri is also suspected of shooting dead a truck driver in Germany and hijacking his vehicle, which he then drove into the Christmas market crowd. Police had been carrying out tests to ascertain if the same gun was used in both the Berlin and Milan shootings. “The comparison carried out between the exploded cartridge from the terrorist’s weapon in Sesto and the one found by the German police has given unequivocal proof that they were fired from the same gun,” police said in a statement

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