MILAN—The Tunisian man suspected in a deadly attack on a Christmas market in Berlin was killed early Friday in a shootout with police in Milan during a routine patrol outside a train station, ending a Europe-wide manhunt.
Italian police said Anis Amri traveled from Germany through France and into Italy after the attack, at least some of it by train. French officials refused to comment on his passage through France, which has increased surveillance on its trains after both recent French attacks and the Berlin massacre.
Italian Premier Paolo Gentiloni praised the two young police officers for their courage in taking down Amri during a routine check of ID papers while he was alone outside the deserted station. But he also called for greater cross-border police cooperation, suggesting some dismay that Europe’s open border policy had enabled Amri to easily move around despite being Europe’s No. 1 fugitive.
Amri was identified with the help of fingerprints supplied by Germany.
“The person killed, without a shadow of a doubt, is Anis Amri, the suspect of the Berlin terrorist attack,” said Italian Interior Minister Marco Minniti.
The ISIS terrorist group has claimed responsibility for Monday’s attack outside Berlin’s Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church in which a truck plowed into a Christmas market, killing 12 people and injuring 56 others. It also claimed the Milan shooting.
In Berlin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she has ordered a comprehensive investigation into all angles of the case after it emerged that German authorities had tracked Amri for months on suspicion of planning an attack.
“We can be relieved at the end of this week that one acute danger has been ended,” she said. “But the danger of terrorism as a whole remains, as it has for many years—we all know that.”
