The Tunisian man suspected of driving a truck into a crowded Christmas market in Berlin was killed on Friday in a shootout with police in Milan, ending a Europe-wide manhunt, Italy’s interior minister said. Checks conducted after the shootout showed “the person killed, without a shadow of a doubt, is Anis Amri, the suspect of the terrorist attack,” interior minister Marco Minniti said.
The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack in Berlin, which killed 12 and injured 56 others. Amri, 24, who had spent time in prison in Italy, was stopped by two officers during a routine police check in the Sesto San Giovanni neighbourhood of Milan on Friday. He pulled a gun from his backpack after being asked to show his identity papers and was killed in the ensuing shootout. It was unclear how and when Amri travelled from Berlin to Milan.
On Tuesday, a Pakistani asylum seeker was apprehended for mowing down Christmas shoppers in a crowded market in the heart of Berlin with a large truck, killing at least 12 people and injuring nearly 50 others even as authorities retracted later saying he may not be behind the “terror attack”. Chancellor Angela Merkel had labelled the deadly rampage a likely “terrorist” attack.
