Just over a week after the botched German response to the worst terrorist attack on German soil in years, when a Tunisian rammed a truck into a Berlin Christmas market killing 12, AP reports that German prosecutors said Wednesday that they have detained a Tunisian man they think may have been involved in last week's truck attack on a Christmas market in Berlin.
The 40-year-old Berliner, who wasn't identified, was taken into custody on Wednesday morning after police raided his apartment and work place in Berlin's district of Tempelhof, the prosecutor's office statement says.
The man's telephone number was saved in the cellphone of Anis Amri, the main suspect behind the Dec. 19 truck attack who was killed in a shootout with police in a suburb of Milan early Friday.
Of the new suspect, prosecutors said in a statement that "further investigations indicate that he may have been involved in the attack." The federal prosecutor's office said in a statement that it will have until Thursday evening to determine whether the case against the 40-year-old is strong enough for them to seek a formal arrest warrant. That would allow them to keep him in custody pending possible charges.
Investigators are trying to determine whether Amri had a support network in planning and carrying out the attack, and in fleeing Berlin. They're also trying to piece together the route he took from Berlin to Milan.
Italian police have said Amri traveled through France, and French authorities said on Tuesday that he made a stop in the eastern French city of Lyon. On Wednesday, Dutch authorities said they are checking whether he fled through the Netherlands, Germany's western neighbor.
"There are indications that he did travel via the Netherlands" on his way to Lyon, Wim de Bruin, a spokesman for the Dutch national prosecutor's office, said. De Bruin refused to provide further details on how and from where Amri might have traveled in the Netherlands.