Alternative for Germany (AfD) MP Beatrix von Storch has claimed that new revelations in the Berlin terror attack investigation show the German government knew attacker Anis Amri was a terror threat.
Ms von Storch, who sits on the Berlin terror attack investigation committee, told Breitbart London that the government, particularly former Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière, had been informed of the potential terrorist danger posed by Amri nearly a year before the December 2016 attack that killed a dozen people.
“The German government has been dragging its feet on this terror attack since day one,” von Storch said and went on to attack German Chancellor Angela Merkel, saying she took a year to even meet with relatives of the victims.
“The investigation committee wasted a year hearing irrelevant testimony, and now that we have the first real witness, we find out why: the German government was warned of Anis Amri as a potential terrorist, explicitly and concretely, almost a year ahead of time, and did everything they could to prevent the attack – from being prevented,” she said.
Anis Amri: Small-Time Criminal Turned Berlin Truck Killer https://t.co/lOgzohvybL pic.twitter.com/lUIe1ELoC8
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) December 23, 2016
The witness, a detective chief superintendent, was questioned in the German Bundestag last week and claimed that an official of the Federal Criminal Investigation Office (BKA) had warned him about Amri in February of 2016.
The detective chief superintendent said this source on Amri was ordered by the “top” to stop monitoring Amri, with some pointing to former Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière as being the one who gave the order to the source.
The source — known as a Vertrauensperson (V-Man) in German, a term for informants who give information from within organisations or milieus — claimed that an official of the Federal Criminal Police Office told him he was doing “too much work” on Amri and doubted the value of surveilling the terrorist.
“It seems former Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière was informed and did nothing. We will keep after this scandal and make sure those responsible are held to account,” von Storch told Breitbart London.
Syrian Asylum Seeker Warned Authorities About Berlin Terrorist a Year Before Deadly Attack
https://t.co/bYVpYxsUZw— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) October 19, 2017
Questions about the Amri case and how investigators have behaved in regards to Amri in the past have been raised on several occasions since the attack.
In May 2017, it was claimed that Berlin police knew of Amri because the failed Tunisian asylum seeker had previously been arrested for drug offences and was well-known as being an Islamist sympathiser. Despite the drug arrests, he was not deported.
Former Federal Prosecutor Bruno Jost went even further in July 2017, saying that police may have manipulated internal files on Amri to make it appear as if he had only one drug offence, and occurred around a month before the attack took place.
Jost later added that police assigned to monitor Amri took weekends and holidays off and stated if officers had monitored him regularly, there would have been a “high probability” the terror attack could have been stopped.
Syrian asylum seeker Mohamed J., who lived in the same room as Amri in 2015, said that he told German authorities that Amri was not only operating under false identities but told them his sympathies for radical jihadists a year before the Berlin attack.
Special Investigator: Police Did Not Watch Berlin Attacker on Weekends, Holidays https://t.co/6w1ftQEWoh
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) October 16, 2017
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.