Anis Amri, a suspect in the deadly attack on a German Christmas market, was shot dead outside of Milan, Italy early Friday morning.
In a press conference Friday morning the Italian Interior Minister, Marco Minniti, confirmed that Anis Amri, the main suspect in Monday’s deadly attack on a Berlin Christmas market which killed 12 people and left 49 injured, was killed in a shootout early Friday morning on the outskirts of Milan.Last night at 3 a.m. in Milan, during a normal patrol one of our officers stopped a person who looked very suspicious,” said Minniti. “The man without hesitating took his gun and he shot at the police officer who (had) asked him for his ID papers. Other officers reacted and the person who attacked our police officer was killed,” continued Minniti.
Minniti added that “there is no doubt” that the person killed is Amri, and that the police officer who was wounded is recovering in hospital.
The initial Italian police report of Amri’s shooting came one hour after Danish police issued a warning that a man matching Amr’s description had been seen in the northern Danish city of Aalborg and that they had “launched an operation.”
Amri, a Tunisian migrant who had recently been denied asylum in Germany, was being watched by German security agencies as a “potential threat” in the months leading up to Monday’s attack, but he did not become a suspect until Wednesday when German police announced they had found Amri’s identification papers in the truck which was used to crash into the seasonal night market on Monday.
In a press conference from Berlin, German Federal Prosecutor Peter Frank, said that that German authorities were in contact with Italian authorities and are undertaking an investigation into how Amri escaped from Berlin following the attack and if he had any accomplices.
“We need to establish whether there was a network of accomplices. That is the focal point of our investigation. If there were accomplices and co-offenders then of course, they need to be part of our investigation,” Frank said.
Frank also said that claims of responsibility by the Islamic State group for Monday’s attack, “is rather vague. It doesn’t specify the offender.”
German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere is also expected to hold a press conference on the shooting. A spokeswoman for German Chancellor Angela Merkel, said that she will discuss the deportation of rejected asylum applicants during a phone conversation with Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi.
Many migrants in Germany fear reprisal attacks given the increasingly violent xenophobic rhetoric of that country's resurgent far-right political leaders who immediately jumped on Monday’s incident to stoke Islamophobic sentiments.
“Unfortunately, most, if not all Germans had already stereotyped refugees, " Ahmad Khattab, a 24-year-old Syrian refugee living in southern Germany told the Washington Post on Wednesday. "German politicians will change the way they deal with us refugees. Laws will be passed that are not in our interest,” he added.
Mohammad Ahmad, a 29-year-old refugee from Syria, told the Post, “right-wing parties are exploiting such incidents to spread fear and boost populist mentality among Germans."
In France, far-right leader Marine Le Pen, who is gaining momentum ahead of next year’s elections took the opportunity to again criticize Europe's immigration policy and the Schengen Area. “The myth of total free movement in Europe, to which my opponents still cling in this presidential election, must be buried.”
British far-right leader and Brexit figurehead Nigel Farage, tweeted that the incident demonstrates that “The Schengen Area is proven to be a risk to public safety. It must go.”
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