Tuesday, January 3, 2017

Germany: Berlin truck attacker was identified as a threat last February

(Berlin) It has been revealed by a German newspaper (Sueddeutsche Zeitung), that German intelligence identified Anis Amri, the Tunisian who killed 12 people in Berlin just before Christmas, as a terrorist threat as early as February last year but decided it was unlikely he would carry out an attack.
The Sueddeutsche Zeitung article (translated by google)
The German authorities had received information that Amri posed a threat from the Morrocan security service (DST) and from phone taps taken as early as February 16 that he had been in contact with suspected members of Islamic State and offered himself as a suicide bomber. However, German officials who met in July to decide whether to deport Amri, determined that he posed no acute threat that could be presented in court.

Questions are now being asked how this intelligence failure was allowed to take place. For some reason, officials at the German Interior Ministry have not been available for comment.