German Xmas market suspect shot dead in Milan

The Tunisian man suspected of carrying out Berlin’s deadly Christmas market truck attack on Monday has been killed in a shootout with police in Italy’s northern city of Milan, after travelling from France

Daniele Bennati /AFP

Anis Amri was shot dead in the early morning confrontation while screaming ‘Allahu Akbar’ according to police.

This follows a massive Europe-wide manhunt for the 24-year-old Tunisian thought to be behind Monday's lorry attack which killed 12 and injured dozens.

Italy's interior minister, Marco Minniti, told a press conference in Rome on Friday, Amri was fatally shot after firing at two police officers who stopped him for a routine identity check around 3am.

“At the moment he was stopped, the man without hesitating took a pistol out of his rucksack and shot the police after they asked him for identification documents,” Minniti said.

One of the officers was hit in the shoulder, and is in hospital awaiting surgery.
Identity checks had established "without a shadow of doubt" that the dead man was Amri, the minister said.

Amri was stopped near the railway station of the working class suburb of Sesto San Giovanni.

Police reportedly found a train ticket from France in his backpack, and it's believed he travelled from Chambéry in the French Alps via Turin to Milan.

Suspect's Italian past

Italy had Amri's fingerprints on file given his stint in a Sicilian prison from 2011 to 2015.
Media reports in Italy say he was on anti-terrorism police's radar as a potential Islamist radical during his time in prison, but was not considered a high-priority subject for monitoring.

Shortly after arriving in Italy from Tunisia in 2011, he was sentenced to a prison term for starting a fire in a refugee centre.

Arrival in Germany

Amri was released in 2015 and made his way to Germany, where he was refused asylum several times under different identities.

He’d been on the run since Monday's attack in Berlin.

German police say they’re certain it was Amri who steered the 40-tonne lorry after finding his identity papers and fingerprints inside the truck, alongside the body of the registered Polish driver, killed with a gunshot to the head.

The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for the assault -- their deadliest yet on German soil.

German reaction

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has voiced relief over the Berlin terror suspect’s death and announced a full investigation, after revelations that Amri was already on German authorities' radar on suspicion of planning an attack.

"If there are other accomplices, we will take them to task," Merkel said in Berlin.

"We can be relieved that an acute threat is over," she said. The danger of terrorism, however, continues. In order to ensure our protection, we will have to work intensively."

Berlin Senate looks to ban mosque association

Meantime the German news website Spiegel Online reports that the Berlin Senate wants to ban the mosque association known as 'Fussilet 33', which Amri apparently frequented. The mosque was the subject of a hunt by German police on Thursday.