Was the Berlin Christmas market attacker an undercover agent?
By
Dietmar Henning
25 January 2017
A report published just over a week ago by the Federal Criminal Office (BKA) raises the question of whether Anis Amri was an intelligence agent.
Amri allegedly drove into a Christmas market with a lorry on December 19 and killed 12 people. He is also accused of shooting and killing the lorry’s Polish driver.
Just days after the attack, it was already clear that Amri had prepared the attack under the noses of the police and intelligence agencies. He had been under constant surveillance over the previous two years and was in contact with an agent with the North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) state intelligence agency.
On the basis of the BKA’s confidential report, it is possible to reconstruct Amri’s activities in Germany quite precisely. The police and intelligence agencies concentrated on Amri almost weekly and followed all of his actions.
Amri came from Italy to Germany in the summer of 2015. He had already received a four-year custodial sentence. He was initially sent to a refugee accommodation centre in Emmerich (Kreis Kleve), NRW.
Already at that time, the 22-year-old was noticed because he had pictures of ISIS fighters on his mobile phone. In December 2015, other refugees reported to the immigration authorities in Kreis Kleve that he “supposedly maintained contact with Islamic State.” Eventually, the authorities were aware of 14 identities used by Amri.
Amri became involved with the Salafist movement, into which the NRW state intelligence agency had embedded at least one agent. He reported repeatedly to the police about Amri. “The source spilled over,” wrote the Süddeutsche Zeitung, which saw the BKA report. These reports filled entire files.
On the basis of…