German police warned Anis Amri was planning a suicide attack nine months before Berlin Christmas market massacre

Attacker Anis Amri and the Berlin markets after they had been destroyed
Attacker Anis Amri and the Berlin markets after they had been destroyed

Police in Germany knew Anis Amri was planning a suicide attack nine months before he drove a lorry into a packed Christmas market in Berlin last December, killing 12 people, it has emerged.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau place flowers at a memorial to the victims of the Berlin Christmas market attack
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau place flowers at a memorial to the victims of the Berlin Christmas market attack Credit: Odd Andersen

The German equivalent of CID warned in a confidential memo to regional authorities last March, that it has intercepted communications indicating Amri was planning a suicide attack, and recommended he be deported.

But the state government of North Rhine-Westphalia ruled that an order to expel him was not legally enforcable.

The new disclosures will add to questions over why Amri was allowed to remain in Germany and move freely around the country even though he was known to be a threat.

They come after Uwe Jacob, head of the North Rhine-Westphalia Landeskriminalamt, the regional CID, admitted him and his staff suspected Amri was behind the Berlin attack the moment they heard of it.

“Our immediate reaction was please don’t let it be Amri,” Mr Jacob told a parliamentary inquiry on Friday.

A Tunisian man identified as Anis Amri, suspected of being involved in the Berlin Christmas market attack, that killed 12 people on December 19
A Tunisian man identified as Anis Amri, suspected of being involved in the Berlin Christmas market attack, that killed 12 people on December 19 Credit: HO

Bild am Sonntag newspaper on Sunday published excerpts from an eight-page memo in which Mr Jacob’s office detailed the evidence Amri could be planning a suicide attack.

It included an intercepted internet chat in which Amri told a contact he wanted to marry a “sister” in Germany, which the memo states is a known code for suicide attacks among jihadists.

When his contact did not understand, Amri used the term “Dougma”, another code for suicide attacks.

The memo recommends Amri’s immediate deportation, saying this is “proportionate” to the danger.

But at the time Amri’s application for asylum in Germany was still being considered, and the authorities in North Rhine-Westphalia, where he was registered, ruled he could not be deported.

His claim was eventually rejected in June, but even then attempts to deport him ran into trouble because he had no valid indentity papers and his native Tunisia was disputing his nationality.

A new travel document that would have made his deportation possible arrived two days after the attack.

The new disclosures will add to the pressure on Ralf Jäger, the North Rhine-Westphalia interior minister, over his government’s failure to prevent the attack.

“These new revelations are dramatic. Interior Minister Jäger is a security risk for people all over Germany,” Armin Laschet, the leader of Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrat party (CDU) in the state said.

“This memo is clear proof Jäger failed in his responsibility as interior minister,”  Joachim Stamp of the Free Democrat party (FDP) said. “We demand Jäger’s resignation, because he refuses to admit the error.”

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