German authorities on Wednesday named the suspect in the Christmas market truck attack as Anis Amri, and offered a reward of up to 100,000 Euros (104,000 dollars) for information leading to his arrest.

The 24-year-old Tunisian, who had three aliases and came to Germany in July 2015, is the subject of a Europe-wide manhunt as the main suspect in the attack, which killed 12 people and injured another 48.

He was described in official papers as 1.78 metres tall, weighing about 75 kilograms with black hair and brown eyes.

Amri was already under investigation in Germany on suspicion of planning a serious act of violence. </s> A European-wide search is on for a 24-year-old Tunisian man, suspected of being involved in Monday’s truck crash at a Christmas market in Berlin that killed 12 and injured nearly 50.

A German security official says authorities had considered him a possible terror threat before the incident and had been trying to deport him after his asylum application was rejected back in the summer.

The wanted poster names Anis Amri as having several aliases as well as Egyptian and Lebanese citizenship.

There’s a $140,000 reward for information leading to an arrest.

The post REWARD OFFERED FOR ARREST OF SUSPECT IN BERLIN CHRISTMAS MARKET CRASH appeared first on Zoomer Radio AM740. </s> Two days after a suspected terrorist ran a lorry into a Christmas market in the German capital of Berlin, authorities have released a photo of the suspect.

German police have disclosed that 24-year-old Anis Amri, a Tunisian is responsible for the incident. Amri had earlier monitored earlier in the year on suspicion of armed robbery.

Officials say he is armed and dangerous and are offering a reward of up to €100,000 ($104,000) for information leading to his arrest. </s> Police in Berlin are offering a reward of €100,000 (US$104,260) for information leading to the arrest of the man suspected of involvement in Monday’s attack on a Christmas market which left 12 dead and 48 injured.

A search is currently underway for 24-year-old Tunisian Anis Amri, who could be armed and dangerous, according to a statement from the Federal Prosecutor's Office (GBA).

"Anis AMRI is 178cm tall and weighs about 75kg, has black hair and brown eyes.” according to the statement.

Police raided two apartments in the Kreuzberg neighborhood of the city but failed to locate Amri. Investigators told Die Welt they believed he had been in one of the apartments before they arrived.

Speaking on Tunisian radio, Amri’s father said he left Tunisia seven years ago as an illegal immigrant and spent time in prison in Italy on accusations of burning a school, according to Reuters.

Amri was also suspected of being involved in a violent robbery in Tunisia, according to his father, who the radio station said is being questioned over possible links between his son and Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL).

Monday’s attack in Berlin saw a Polish-registered truck driven into a crowd in an attack echoing the Nice massacre of July when 86 people were killed.

Identity documents belonging to Amri were reportedly found inside the truck, according to Der Spiegel.

Suspect tracked by authorities for months, surveillance called off in September

German authorities had been tracking the main suspect in the Berlin attack for months before calling off surveillance operations on the 24-year-old Tunisian, Anis Amri.

Amri arrived in Germany in July 2015, at the height of the refugee influx, after serving a four-year prison term in Italy, Ralf Jaeger, the interior minister of North Rhine-Westphalia said, according to AP.

Since February this year the Tunisian was able to move freely around Germany, after registering near the Dutch border. All that time, Amri had been living mostly in Berlin, Jaeger noted.

The main suspect in the attack had been added to a list of potentially violent Islamic extremists. Prosecutors in Berlin even launched an investigation into the potential threat posed by Amri on March 14 following a tip from federal security agencies.

The tip warned that the Tunisian might be planning a possible future attack and had been seeking to purchase automatic weapons. After conducting surveillance for several months, German authorities failed to find evidence to substantiate the claim, calling off surveillance on Amri in September.

"Security agencies exchanged information about this person in the joint counter-terrorism center, the last time in November," said Jaeger.

READ MORE: Berlin market attack: Police searching for Tunisian man after finding ID in truck – reports

Jaeger also revealed that the suspect's asylum application had been rejected in July, but authorities failed to deport him because the 24-year old didn't have valid identity papers. In August migration authorities made an effort to help Amri secure a replacement passport.

"Tunisia at first denied that this person was its citizen, and the papers weren't issued for a long time," Jaeger said."They arrived today." </s> BERLIN/DUESSELDORF (Reuters) - German police are looking for an asylum-seeker from Tunisia after finding an identity document under the driver’s seat of a truck that ploughed into a Berlin Christmas market and killed 12 people, officials and security sources said on Wednesday.

The federal prosecutor’s office offered a reward of up to 100,000 euros ($104,000) for information leading to the capture of the suspect, whom it identified as 24-year-old Anis Amri.

“Beware: He could be violent and armed!” the prosecutor’s office said in a statement, in which it described Amri as 1.78 metres (5’8”) tall, with black hair and brown eyes.

German police commandos raided two apartments in the Berlin district of Kreuzberg late on Wednesday but did not find Amri, Die Welt newspaper reported, citing investigators.

Amri’s father and security sources told Tunisia’s Radio Mosaique that he had left Tunisia seven years ago as an illegal immigrant and had spent time in prison in Italy.

In Duesseldorf, Ralf Jaeger, interior minister of the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), said the Tunisian appeared to have arrived in Germany in July 2015 and his asylum application had been rejected.

He seemed to have used different names and had been identified by security agencies as being in contact with an Islamist network. He had mainly lived in Berlin since February, but was recently in NRW, Jaeger added.

After being turned down for asylum, the man should have been deported but could not be returned to Tunisia because his documents were missing, he said.

“Tunisia at first denied that this person was its citizen,” said Jaeger, adding that German authorities started the process of getting new identity papers in August 2016. “The papers weren’t issued for a long time. They arrived today.”

A judicial source told Reuters that German authorities had observed Amri over a period this year to try to determine whether he had planned a robbery to fund the purchase of automatic weapons for a possible attack with accomplices.

Authorities stopped their monitoring activities because they could not prove their suspicions, the source said.

QUESTIONS

The new details have added to a growing list of questions about whether security forces missed opportunities to prevent the attack, in which a 25-tonne truck mowed down shoppers and smashed through wooden huts selling gifts, mulled wine and sausages in the deadliest attack on German soil since 1980.

Christmas markets have been a known potential target for Islamist militants since at least 2000, when authorities thwarted a plot to attack one in Strasbourg, France. And the modus operandi in Berlin was identical to that of a Bastille Day attack in the French city of Nice in July, when a Tunisian-born man rammed a lorry through a seaside crowd and killed 86 people.

The market at the scene of Monday’s attack, at the foot of the Kaiser Wilhelm memorial church, stayed shut on Wednesday, but more than 60 other Christmas markets across the German capital re-opened under tightened security.

People protest against an anti-immigration party Alternative for Germany (AfD) demonstration in front of the chancellery in Berlin, Germany, December 21, 2016, after a truck ploughed through a crowd at a Christmas market in the captial on Monday night. REUTERS/Hannibal Hanschke

“We don’t want to let the terrorists win. If everyone stays away, they are winning,” said tourist Nicki Anning at the Gendarmenmarkt Square in central Berlin.

Berlin authorities said 12 people seriously injured in Monday’s attack were still being treated in hospital.

The pre-Christmas carnage at a symbolic site - under the ruined spire of a church bombed in World War Two - has shocked Germans and prompted security reviews across Europe, already on high alert after attacks this year in Belgium and France.

The possible - though unproven - involvement of a migrant or refugee has revived a bitter debate about security and immigration, with Chancellor Angela Merkel facing calls to clamp down after allowing more than a million newcomers into Germany in the past two years.

Merkel, who will run for a fourth term next year, has said it would be particularly repugnant if a refugee seeking protection in Germany was the perpetrator.

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump condemned the Berlin attack on Wednesday, blaming “Islamist terrorists (who) continually slaughter Christians in their communities and places of worship as part of their global jihad”.

“It’s an attack on humanity and it’s gotta be stopped,” he told reporters in Palm Beach, Florida.

Police initially arrested a Pakistani asylum-seeker near the scene, but released him without charge on Tuesday.

The Polish driver of the hijacked truck was found shot dead in the cabin of the vehicle. Bild newspaper said he had been alive until the attack took place. It also quoted an investigator as saying there must have been a struggle with the attacker, who may have been injured.

ISLAMIC STATE CLAIM

Islamic State has claimed responsibility, as it did for the Nice attack.

The Passauer Neue Presse newspaper quoted the head of the group of interior ministers from Germany’s 16 federal states, Klaus Bouillon, as saying tougher security measures were needed.

“We want to raise the police presence and strengthen the protection of Christmas markets. We will have more patrols. Officers will have machine guns. We want to make access to markets more difficult, with vehicles parked across them,” Bouillon told the paper.

Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann told German radio there was a higher risk of Islamist attacks because of the influx of migrants in the past two years, many of whom have fled conflicts in countries such as Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.

The task of tracking the suspects and the movements of the truck may be complicated by the relative scarcity of security cameras in public places in Germany, compared with countries such as Britain.

Slideshow (8 Images)

The German cabinet on Wednesday approved a draft law to broaden video surveillance in public and commercial areas, a measure agreed by political parties last month after violent attacks and sexual assaults on women.

State surveillance is a sensitive issue in Germany because of extensive snooping by the Stasi secret police in Communist East Germany and by the Gestapo in the Nazi era. </s> Germany has issued a reward of up to 100,000 euros to find the main suspect in the Berlin Christmas market attack.

A Europe-wide manhunt has been launched to trace Tunisian Anis Amri, who is believed to be armed and dangerous and has links to Islamic extremists, say investigators.

The failed asylum seeker is suspected of being at the wheel of a hijacked 25-tonne lorry which ploughed into a crowd of shoppers at a busy market in the German capital.

Twelve people were killed and 48 others injured in Monday evening’s attack, which has been claimed by the Islamic State terrorist group.

Authorities have issued a European arrest warrant for 24-year-old Amri, who is thought to have used six different aliases and three different nationalities.

He was known to police and detectives have raided two Berlin apartments but did not find him, said the Die Welt newspaper.

Amri, who arrived in Germany in July 2015, had been considered a possible terror threat by the country’s authorities before this week’s crash, according to an official.

The interior minister of North Rhine-Westphalia state, Ralf Jaeger, said security agencies exchanged information about this person in the joint counter-terrorism centre, the last time in November.

German authorities rejected an asylum request by Amri in July.

They prepared to deport him but were not able to do so as he did not have valid identity papers, said Mr Jaeger.

The £84,000 reward has been offered for information leading to the suspected driver being detained.

Documents which were apparently asylum office papers issued to Amri were found in the truck cab, according to German media.

He is described as being 5ft 8in tall, with black hair and brown eyes.

Tunisian anti-terror police have questioned his family who live in the town of Oueslatia.

The original driver of the lorry, Lukasz Urban from Poland, was beaten and stabbed before his vehicle was driven by a hijacker at the market in Breitscheidplatz, it is believed.

Mr Urban, 37, was still alive during the rampage and was then shot dead just before the attacker fled the scene, according to reports.

The gun has not yet been recovered.

A Pakistani asylum seeker who was arrested shortly after the massacre was released by police on Tuesday due to lack of evidence.

In July, some 86 people were killed when a terrorist drove a truck through crowds along Nice’s packed waterfront on Bastille Day.

The massacre was carried out by a Tunisian man living in France.

Read more

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:: Christmas markets should have been shut’ </s> The German Police were in search of a Tunisian individual in connection to the Berlin Christmas attack. The German Police has now revealed some information about Anis Amri;

A wanted notice was issued by the German Federal Prosecutor’s Office, which stated that a reward of up to 100,000 euros (about $104,000) was offered for information about the suspect’s whereabouts, and said Amri is “under urgent suspicion.” The notice also said, “If you see this person that we are seeking, inform the police. Please do not put yourself in danger because this person could be violent and armed”.

The German Police were in search of a Tunisian and later on Wednesday, December 21, the suspect in connection was identified as the person who was already arrested in Germany in August with forged documents then released by Judge.

The Islamic State (IS) has said one of its militants carried out the lorry attack on a Berlin Christmas market, which left twelve (12) people dead.

Twelve (12) people have been killed after a lorry ploughed into a huge crowd at a festive market in the German capital of Berlin. </s> German authorities have named Tunisian man Anis Amri as their prime suspect after a truck drove through a Christmas market on Monday, killing 12 people, Reuters has reported.

Another suspect, a Pakistani asylum seeker who was known to the German police, was released Tuesday because of a lack of evidence.

In a statement, the German Federal Prosecutor's Office confirmed its search for Amri, 24. Authorities have offered a €100,000 (£84,000, $104,000) reward for information leading to his arrest.

"Anis AMRI is 178cm tall and weighs about 75kg, has black hair and brown eyes," the office said in the statement, according to Reuters. "Beware: He could be violent and armed!"

Germany's interior minister, Thomas de Maizière, said earlier on Wednesday that the German police were collaborating with authorities in Europe's Schengen area, where people can move from country to country without a passport, to find Amri. He did acknowledge, however, that Amri may not be the driver behind the attack.

The search turned to the Tunisian after an identification document was found under the driver's seat in the 40-tonne truck behind Monday night's carnage.

At a press conference in Düsseldorf, North Rhine-Westphalia's interior minister Ralf Jaeger said that Amri, who arrived in Germany in July 2015, was known to German security agencies. He had apparently been imprisoned in Italy for four years for setting a school on fire prior to arriving in Germany, Reuters reported.

German police, who considered Amri dangerous and suspected he was part of a large Islamic extremist network, first launched an investigation against him on March 14 following a tip from federal security agencies that he may have been planning a terror attack.

Amri had apparently been under covert surveillance as far back as June, German authorities told the Associated Press, when his asylum application was denied and attempts to deport him to Tunisia failed.

Tunisia initially denied Amri was a citizen and did not issue his passport to German authorities until Wednesday — two days after the attack.

ISIS on Tuesday afternoon claimed credit for Monday's destruction, supporting what German and US officials had presumed to be an act of terrorism. The group's Amaq news agency called the truck driver an ISIS soldier who "executed the operation in response to calls to target nationals of the coalition countries."

The truck ran into the market outside the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church in the Charlottenburg neighbourhood of Berlin at about 8 p.m. local time on Monday. It ploughed through stalls and tables and travelled 50 to 80 metres (164 to 262 feet), according to the Berliner Morgenpost.

A Polish man, named as Lukasz Urban, was found dead in the passenger side of the truck. De Maizière, the German interior minister, confirmed that the man was shot with a shotgun but said the weapon had not been recovered. The man was identified by a cousin who owned the truck company where the man had been a driver.

Amid fears that the attack might have been carried out by migrants, Berliners and refugees gathered to sing "We Are the World" in front of the Kaiser Wilhelm church on Wednesday, according to Reuters. The gathering was a mark of respect for those who died in the attack. </s> The photo which was sent to European police authorities shows Tunisian national Anis Amri who is wanted by German police for an alleged involvement in the Berlin Christmas market attack. (Source: AP) The photo which was sent to European police authorities shows Tunisian national Anis Amri who is wanted by German police for an alleged involvement in the Berlin Christmas market attack. (Source: AP)

Germany on Wednesday offered a reward of up to 100,000 euros ($104,260) for information leading to the arrest of a Tunisian man suspected of involvement in the Berlin truck attack, identifying him as 24-year-old Anis Amri who could be armed and dangerous. The Federal Prosecutor’s Office (GBA) said in a statement that a search for Amri was underway, with support from police forces in all of Germany’s 16 federal states.

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“Anis AMRI is 178 cm tall and weighs about 75 kg, has black hair and brown eyes,” the office said in the statement. “Beware: He could be violent and armed!” Two pictures of Amri were published on the GBA’s website.
German officials offer a reward of up to 100,000 euros ($104,000) for 24-year-old Tunisian asylum-seeker Anis Amri, whose identifying information was found in the truck used in the attack.