Updated December 23, 2016 22:36:06
The man believed to be the suspect in the Berlin Christmas market truck attack has been killed in a shootout in a suburb of Milan, Italy's Interior Minister says.
Marco Minniti said after the shootout all the necessary checks were conducted, and that "the person killed, without a shadow of a doubt, is Anis Amri, the suspect of the terrorist attack".
He said Amri had been stopped at 3:00am, when two police officers in a patrol car challenged him to show some ID.
Amri pulled out a pistol and shot one officer in the shoulder. The other officer, on probation with nine months service, returned fire, killing him.
Mr Minniti said the shot officer's condition was not life-threatening.
"These two extraordinary, extremely young men, simply by doing their duty, have done an extraordinary service to our community," he said. German authorities were immediately informed, he added.
Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the Berlin attack in which a truck mowed through a crowd of people at Christmas markets in the city, killing 12 people and injuring up to 48 others.
Amri's fingerprints were found in the cab of the truck, indicating that he was driving the vehicle, German officials said.
Germany has not yet received official written notification of Amri's death from Italy, German Interior Ministry spokesman Tobias Plate said, but a German police liaison office in Rome has been informed.
"Should this turn out to be true then the Interior Ministry is relieved that this person doesn't pose a threat anymore," Mr Plate said.
German authorities had issued a wanted notice for Amri and offered a reward of up to 100,000 euros ($144,634) for information leading to his arrest, warning that he could be "violent and armed".
"We can tell you today that there are additional indications that this suspect is with high probability really the perpetrator," Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said after visiting the Federal Criminal Police Office along with Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Frauke Koehler, a spokeswoman for federal prosecutors, specified that Amri's fingerprints were found on the driver's door and the side of the vehicle.
"We believe that Anis Amri was steering the truck," she said.
Amri had been identified by security agencies as a potential threat and had his application for asylum rejected, but authorities had not managed to deport him because of missing identity documents.
Reuters
First posted December 23, 2016 20:52:12
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