Amri accomplice charged with planning attack in germany

The federal prosecutor’s office has filed charges against an islamist from berlin who is alleged to have planned an explosives attack in germany with the late christmas market bomber anis amri. Magomed-ali C. Has been in custody since august.

According to the indictment, his aim was "to kill or at least injure as many people as possible". In addition to the tunisian amri, an accomplice who is now in custody in france was also involved in the plot, which was disrupted by police officers, as the federal prosecutor’s office announced on tuesday.

The 31-year-old from dagestan C. Is russian national. He is suspected of having stored "a not insignificant quantity" of the explosive TATP in his apartment in october 2016. He is alleged to have used this together with clement B. Procured or manufactured, which came to him in berlin for this purpose. The explosive has not been found until today. The search for other accomplices led to contact with amri at the end of 2015, but this contact was broken off in the meantime. At the beginning of october 2016, amri had then joined the plan.

Amri had on 19. December 2016 drove a truck into a christmas market on berlin’s breitscheidplatz, killing twelve people. More than 70 people were injured. According to the federal prosecutor’s office, neither C. Nor clement B. From this plan.

Investigators assume that the trio was informed by a visit by berlin police to C. On 26. October 2016 was startled and separated. The officers had rung the doorbell to C. To say that they have him on the screen. According to previous findings, they are said to have known nothing about the explosives that were possibly stored in the apartment at the time.

The head of the berlin state criminal police office, christian steiof, told the federal parliament’s investigative committee on the terrorist attack on breitscheidplatz: "making a threat statement when i have concrete indications that they may already be manufacturing explosives even at the place of residence where a threat statement is to take place is by no means the wisest course of action, if only for reasons of self-security."

The left-wing chairwoman of the bundestag’s investigation committee, martina renner, said: "amri was part of a larger jihadist network with concrete plans for an attack." also against this background, this "danger speech" had been wrong. "Thus the group was warned and flushed out."FDP interior politician benjamin strasser said: "at the time, there was still telecommunications surveillance against amri and there were camera recordings. Neither was consistently evaluated."

Clement B. In love at that time berlin. He was caught in france in april 2017, where he is said to have prepared another attack with another accomplice. Magomed-ali C. Is to be tried at the berlin chamber court. The indictment was previously reported by "zeit online".

In 2016, the tunisian had come to the attention of the moroccan intelligence service via other contacts of amri’s. This emerges from documents about which the federal criminal police office (BKA) informed the security authorities of the federal government and the federal states in november 2016. A memo seen by the german press agency says amri is an "islamonaut" and wants to carry out "a project" he could not talk about on the phone. The moroccans asked the BKA at the time for further information on amri, as well as on a moroccan and a french-moroccan who belonged to his circle of contacts. They were particularly interested in possible contacts with members of the terrorist militia "islamic state" (IS) in syria, libya or iraq.

The federal office for the protection of the constitution was asked at the time to follow up on the tips from morocco. However, as the bundestag inquiry committee into the attack on breitscheidplatz discovered, the intelligence service merely asked the u.S. Intelligence service what to make of the evidence. The answer of the americans came only after the attack.

Another islamist who was in contact with amri is to be questioned as a witness by the investigating committee. Tunisian bilal ben ammar, however, was deported to his home country in february 2017. There are indications that he is still in tunisia. When and where the delegates could ask him questions is unclear.