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Berlin Attack Suspect Is Killed by Police Near Milan Berlin Attack Suspect Is Killed by Police Near Milan
(about 3 hours later)
SESTO SAN GIOVANNI, Italy — Anis Amri, the chief suspect in the deadly terrorist attack on a Christmas market in Berlin this week, was killed by the police in a shootout outside Milan around 3 a.m. Friday, ending a brief but intense manhunt across Europe, Italian officials announced. SESTO SAN GIOVANNI, Italy — It was a routine identity check, the kind Italy has relied more on to stem the flow of illegal migrants deeper into Europe. But the man stopped by two police officers at about 3 a.m. Friday outside the northern city of Milan was anything but an ordinary drifter.
Stopped in the suburb of Sesto San Giovanni, north of central Milan, Mr. Amri was asked to show identification papers, Italian officials said. He pulled out a pistol and shot the officer who had asked for the papers. A second officer then opened fire, killing Mr. Amri. He turned out to be perhaps Europe’s most wanted man, Anis Amri, the chief suspect in the deadly terrorist attack on a Christmas market in Berlin that killed 12 people. Asked to show his papers and empty his backpack, he pulled a gun, shot one officer, and in turn was shot and killed by another.
“The person who attacked our police officers was killed,” Interior Minister Marco Minniti said at a news conference. “There is absolutely no doubt that the person who was killed was Anis Amri, the suspect in the terrorist attack in Berlin.” “Police bastards,” Mr. Amri, who turned 24 this week, shouted in Italian before dying, according to the account given by Antonio De Iesu, director of the Milan police, at a news conference.
Law enforcement authorities issued a Europe-wide warrant on Wednesday for Mr. Amri, a 24-year-old Tunisian who moved to Italy in 2011 and then relocated to Germany in 2015. How one of the most wanted men in Europe was able to travel seemingly freely after an attack that left at least 12 people dead will no doubt be a crucial question for investigators. For Italy, the shooting death of the Tunisian, who had pledged his allegiance to the Islamic State in a video released by the group on Friday, spurred a moment of national pride and some reassurance that its security measures were working.
The Islamic State, which had called Mr. Amri “a soldier” who “carried out the attack in response to calls for targeting citizens of the Crusader coalition,” released a video on Friday that Mr. Amri had recorded, in which he proclaimed loyalty to the group’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and declared that he was avenging coalition airstrikes that have killed civilians. For Germany, it brought a sense of palpable relief after a week of national anguish. “Now I can wish you all a really peaceful Christmas,” the German interior minister, Thomas de Maiziere, told reporters Friday afternoon, as he thanked his Italian counterparts.
Islamic State adherents are encouraged to send out such video pledges before launching attacks. Similar claims have been made by men who carried out assaults in Paris and Orlando, Fla. The videos have been recorded on laptops and cellphones and distributed through mediums like Facebook Live. But the death also raised numerous more questions about Mr. Amri’s movements and motivations, as well as about the potential gaps in the security of a Europe of open borders.
Mr. Amri is believed to have had ties to an Iraqi-born Salafist preacher who went by the name Abu Walaa and who has been jailed on suspicion of recruiting fighters to join the Islamic State, but the extent of those ties is not clear. Law enforcement authorities issued a Europe-wide warrant on Wednesday for Mr. Amri, a 24-year-old Tunisian who moved to Italy in 2011, where he spent time in numerous prisons before making his way to Germany in 2015.
Also unknown is whether Mr. Amri had any accomplices for the Berlin attack — a question that Peter Frank, Germany’s top federal prosecutor, identified as a priority for investigators. “It is very important now to determine if there was a network of cooperators, a network of supporters, accessories or assistants helping him to prepare the attack, execute the attack and also to escape,” he said at a news conference in Karlsruhe, Germany. Both countries had tried to deport him and were thwarted by a lack of documents and cooperation from his home country.
A third big question is how such a prominent fugitive managed to leave Germany. According to tickets that the Italian police found on Mr. Amri, he traveled by train to Turin, in northwestern Italy, from Chambéry, France. He then continued to Central Station in Milan, where he arrived around 1 a.m. on Friday. Even after Mr. Amri was named as the prime suspect in the attack in Berlin, he was able to roam freely around Europe, his face plastered across news media and a reward of more than $100,000 on his head.
Counterterrorism officials have said that the ease of movement within the 26-country Schengen area poses security challenges. “This mobility is great for the law-abiding and equally great for the non-law-abiding,” said Douglas H. Wise, a former senior C.I.A. officer. “This mobility is great for the law-abiding and equally great for the non-law-abiding,” said Douglas H. Wise, a former senior C.I.A. officer, of the borderless travel within the European Union.
The authorities in Germany initially arrested a different man — later released — in connection with the attack, and that might have given Mr. Amri a head start in fleeing. He would most likely have been able to buy train tickets without having to show identification papers. What Mr. Amri was doing in the four days between the attack in Berlin and when he was ultimately killed in Sesto San Giovanni, a suburb north of central Milan, is not clear, but that is now the subject of intense investigation that authorities remain reluctant to discuss.
Moreover, facial-recognition software in surveillance cameras is still in rudimentary form in much of Europe; surveillance cameras have long been shunned in Germany, given its contemporary emphasis on personal privacy, although that position is being rethought. Asked on Friday when exactly the authorities first lighted on Mr. Amri as a suspect, the head of Germany’s federal criminal police, Holger Münch, restated in general terms that it was on Tuesday, after investigators found an identity document in a wallet in the cab of the tractor-trailer used in the attack.
Surveillance cameras in the Milan train station recorded Mr. Amri’s movements, Italian investigators said. It was not clear how Mr. Amri then made his way to Sesto San Giovanni, about 4.3 miles to the northwest of Central Station. Police have not said why the wallet was not discovered on Monday, when the attack occurred and the murdered driver was found in the cab. On Friday, Mr. Münch for the first time mentioned without further reference that an alias was involved, but said the police had quickly linked it to Mr. Amri.
“How he traveled there and what he was doing there are subject to delicate investigations,” Antonio De Iesu, director of the Milan police, said at a news conference. “We have to understand whether he was in transit or was awaiting someone.” A senior European counterterrorism official said that the delay in identifying Mr. Amri probably gave him a several-hours crucial head start to flee Germany, and that he would have been able to buy a train ticket to France and Italy without showing identification papers.
Mr. Amri was “aggressive, firm and determined,” Mr. De Iesu said. He was carrying a small knife and the equivalent of a few hundred dollars, but no cellphone. Facial-recognition software on surveillance cameras in Europe is still in rudimentary form in most places, the official said, so even after Mr. Amri was identified, he could have slipped through the train stations undetected, especially if was wearing a hat or hood.
According to the account provided by Mr. De Iesu, Mr. Amri was standing alone on a piazza in Sesto San Giovanni, next to the northern terminus of the M1 subway line, when the officers stopped him and asked for identification. Mr. Amri’s ability to hide through the week and make his way from Germany, through France, to Italy also raised questions of whether he had the help of a broader network, particularly one possibly linked to the Islamic State.
Mr. Amri responded, in good Italian with a North African accent, that he was not carrying any documents on him. They asked him to empty his pockets and backpack. That is when he pulled out the pistol. The group called Mr. Amri “a soldier” in the video released Friday, in which Mr. Amri proclaimed loyalty to the Islamic Sate leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and declared that the attack in Berlin was intended to avenge coalition airstrikes in Syria that have killed civilians.
“It was a regular patrol, under the new system of intensified police checks on the territory,” Mr. De Iesu said. “They had no perception that it could be him, otherwise they’d have been more careful.” The video released was evidently filmed in the Moabit region of northern Berlin, on the Kieler bridge near the city’s northern port, German officials said. The autumn foliage seen on trees suggested it was filmed in fall or even early December.
Mr. De Iesu denied that Mr. Amri had shouted “God is great” in Arabic, as some local news outlets had reported. “He only shouted ‘police bastards,’ in Italian, after he was shot,” Mr. De Iesu said. In Germany, Mr. Amri came on the radar of the authorities in part for suspected ties to an Iraqi-born Salafist preacher who went by the name Abu Walaa who was jailed just weeks ago on suspicion of recruiting fighters to join the Islamic State.
Also unknown is whether Mr. Amri had any accomplices for the Berlin attack — a question that Peter Frank, Germany’s top federal prosecutor, identified as a priority for investigators.
“It is very important now to determine if there was a network of cooperators, a network of supporters, accessories or assistants helping him to prepare the attack, execute the attack and also to escape,” he told a news conference on Friday in Karlsruhe, Germany.
The only uncertainty that seemed to be settled on Friday was that the man killed was indeed Mr. Amri.
“There is absolutely no doubt that the person who was killed was Anis Amri, the suspect in the terrorist attack in Berlin,” the Italian Interior Minister Marco Minniti said at a news conference.
“As soon as this person entered our country, he was the most wanted man in Europe, and we immediately identified him and neutralized him,” Mr. Minniti said. “This means that our security is working really well.”
According to tickets that the Italian police found on Mr. Amri, he traveled by train from Chambéry, France, to Turin, in northwestern Italy. He then continued to Central Station in Milan, where he arrived around 1 a.m. Friday.
Surveillance cameras in the Milan train station recorded Mr. Amri’s movements, Italian investigators said. It was not clear how Mr. Amri then made his way to Sesto San Giovanni, about 4.3 miles away.
“How he traveled there and what he was doing there are subject to delicate investigations,” Mr. Iesu said at the news conference. “We have to understand whether he was in transit or was awaiting someone.”
Sesto is a “ a strategic hub for transportation,” the town’s deputy mayor, Andrea Rivolta, said in an interview in city hall. “Sesto is a junction for the railway system, the Milan metro, municipal buses and buses that reach all of Europe.”
That is one reason the square in front of the station was patrolled frequently, said Mayor Monica Chitto’.
The operation that led to Mr. Amri’s discovery was “part of an operation that had nothing of the extraordinary and everything of the ordinary,” she told reporters at a news conference on Friday.
According to the account provided by Mr. De Iesu, Mr. Amri was standing alone on a piazza in Sesto San Giovanni, next to the northern terminus of the M1 subway line.
When the officers stopped him and asked for identification, he was “aggressive, firm and determined,” Mr. De Iesu said.
Mr. Amri responded, in good Italian with a North African accent, that he was not carrying any documents on him. They asked him to empty his pockets and backpack. He was carrying a small knife and the equivalent of a few hundred dollars, but no cellphone.
But then he pulled out a pistol, Mr. De Iesu said.
“It was a regular patrol, under the new system of intensified police checks on the territory,” he said. “They had no perception that it could be him, otherwise they’d have been more careful.”
The officer whom Mr. Amri shot, identified as Cristian Movio, 35, was wounded in the shoulder and had surgery on Friday. The other officer, who shot Mr. Amri, was identified as Luca Scatà, 29.The officer whom Mr. Amri shot, identified as Cristian Movio, 35, was wounded in the shoulder and had surgery on Friday. The other officer, who shot Mr. Amri, was identified as Luca Scatà, 29.
Mr. Amri had been described as armed and dangerous, and a reward of 100,000 euros, or about $104,000, had been offered for information leading to his capture. The Berlin attack injured 53 people, 14 of them seriously, according to updated information released on Friday.
“As soon as this person entered our country, he was the most wanted man in Europe, and we immediately identified him and neutralized him,” Mr. Minniti said, although it seemed clear that the stop was routine and not part of a directed effort to find Mr. Amri. “This means that our security is working really well.”
Mr. Minniti was joined at the news conference by Franco Gabrielli, the chief of the state police, and by Gen. Tullio Del Sette, the commander of the Carabinieri. Mr. Minniti declined to discuss the details of the operation, noting that the investigation was still underway.
In Germany, officials expressed relief that Europe’s most intensive manhunt appeared to have been brought to a successful conclusion — but they faced tough questions about how and why Mr. Amri eluded the authorities in the months before the attack.
He had been ordered deported in June, but bureaucratic obstacles prevented the authorities from following through. And in September, the authorities stopped electronic monitoring of Mr. Amri, even though he had been identified as a security risk.
Mr. Amri left Tunisia, according to his relatives, with dreams of making money and buying a car. After arriving in Italy, he spent time in six jails and was a violent inmate.
In Germany, he was one of about 550 people identified as a danger to the state and placed under special surveillance.
Yet he was able to ignore deportation orders and brushes with the law, roaming freely until he was believed to have seized a truck, killed its Polish driver, and rammed it into a crowded market Monday night at Breitscheidplatz, a main square in Berlin.
Thanks to the brave efforts of police officers, “the Italians can have a very happy Christmas,” Mr. Minniti said. “Italy should be really proud of our security.”Thanks to the brave efforts of police officers, “the Italians can have a very happy Christmas,” Mr. Minniti said. “Italy should be really proud of our security.”