Germany had monitored Berlin truck attack suspect for months
BERLIN — German officials had deemed the Tunisian man being sought in a manhunt across Europe a threat long before a truck plowed into a Christmas market in Berlin — and even kept him under covert surveillance for six months this year before halting the operation.
Now the international manhunt for Anis Amri — considered the prime suspect in Monday’s deadly rampage — is raising questions about how closely German authorities are monitoring the hundreds of known Islamic extremists in the country.
The issue puts new pressure on Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is running for re-election next year. Critics are lambasting her for allowing hundreds of thousands of asylum-seekers to enter the country, allegedly without proper security checks.
Among them was Amri, a convicted criminal in both Tunisia and Italy with little chance of getting asylum who successfully evaded deportation from Germany even as German authorities rejected his asylum application and deemed the 24-year-old a possible jihadi threat.