NAN-F-6
Suspect
Rome, Dec.23,2016 (dpa/NAN) Anis Amri, the Tunisian suspect in the deadly Berlin Christmas market attack was killed in a shootout with police in Milan, officials said Friday ending a four-day Europe-wide manhunt.
Germany’s top prosecutor Peter Frank, who confirmed the death of Amri said that the Berlin truck attack suspect was shot dead in Milan.
Italian Interior Minister Marco Minniti also said in a press conference that Amri’s identity had been confirmed “without a shadow of a doubt”.
The ANSA news agency, citing security sources, added that the man’s fingerprints matched Amri’s.
The suspect was stopped for a routine check at around 3 a.m. (0200 GMT) in Sesto San Giovanni, in the northern outskirts of Milan.
When an officer asked him for his documents, Amri pulled out a gun and shot him. He was killed when police fired back, the minister said.
The officer is in hospital, but is not in life-threatening condition.
“Anis Amri was not carrying any documents, but a loaded 22 gun.
“His identity was confirmed by forensic police who arrived on the scene immediately after the event,” Italian police said in a Facebook statement detailing the events.
Italy’s Corriere della Sera newspaper reported that police officers found a ticket for a train from Chambery, in south-eastern France, arriving in Milan at 1 a.m. – just two hours before he was shot dead.
A spokesman for Germany’s Interior Ministry declined to confirm that the suspect killed in Milan was Amri, but said it would be “relieved” if there is confirmed of the suspected Berlin attacker’s identity.
Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni said that he personally told German Chancellor Angela Merkel that Amri was killed in Milan.
“We remain on maximum alert, threats must not be underestimated, but what happened last night I think should allow all of our citizens to know that the state is present, that Italy is present,” Gentiloni said.
Amri, a 24-year-old Tunisian national who had been due for deportation from Germany, is believed to have driven a large truck laden with steel into a Berlin Christmas market late Monday, killing 12 people and injuring 53.
Amri reportedly spent several years in Italy before entering Germany in July 2015.
According to German media reports before the shootout in Milan, German authorities had believed that Amri was unlikely to have fled beyond Berlin after the attack.
Officers have carried out several raids across the city, and in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia, where Amri is known to have spent time.
On Thursday and Friday, police searched a mosque in Berlin’s Moabit district where Amri was reportedly sighted several days before and immediately after the attack. (dpa/NAN)
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Edited by Isaac Aregbesola/Grace Yussuf