German authorities have raided the living quarters of two people suspected of having been in touch with the suspected Berlin Christmas market attacker, the German Federal Prosecutor’s Office said Tuesday.
One of the locations was a refugee shelter; the other was an apartment. It is unclear whether any arrests were made at the two Berlin sites.
Twelve people were killed and at least 48 more injured when a truck thought to be driven by Anis Amri plowed through an open-air market in Berlin on the evening of December 19.
A 26-year-old Tunisian national who authorities suspect knew Amri’s plans and possibly helped him with the attack lives at the shelter, the prosecutor’s office said.
The Tunisian has known Amri since the end of 2015 and was still in contact with him close to the time of the attack, the office said in a statement.
The second raid site was an apartment in Berlin where the former roommate of Amri is thought to have lived. Authorities believe the roommate might have been in touch with Amri around the time of the attack.
Amri, a 24-year-old Tunisian and the suspected driver, fled Berlin and was killed in a shootout with Italian police in Milan on December 23.
Investigators have since tracked Amri’s movements to the Netherlands, France and then Italy. They have been looking to see whether he was linked to a broader network, Frauke Koehler a spokeswoman for the German Federal Prosecutor, said last week.
Authorities have concluded that a video in which Amri pledges allegiance to ISIS is genuine.
In the video Amri pledges allegiance to the terror group’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. He vows that “we will slaughter” the “crusaders who are shelling the Muslims every day.”
In a similar attack in the French city of Nice in July, an 18-ton truck was driven for more than a mile through crowds gathered along a main street for Bastille Day celebrations, killing 84 people and injuring many more.The driver of that truck was Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, a 31-year-old Tunisian man who lived in Nice.
