Berlin Truck Attack Suspect Shot, Killed In Italy

The Tunisian man sought as the primary suspect in connection with the truck attack on a Berlin Christmas market this week was killed early Friday morning by Italian police near Milan, Italy.

Anis Amri, whose bid for asylum in Germany was rejected in July, became the subject of a massive manhunt on Thursday morning after authorities discovered his personal documents in the cab of the truck used in the Berlin attack, and his fingerprints on the door.

Italian Interior Minister Marco Minniti said at a news conference that the incident began early Friday morning near the Sesto San Giovanni train station in Milan’s outskirts. Two police officers stopped the man presumed to be Amri, who was on foot, and asked to see his identification. 

Amri then removed a handgun from a backpack and shot one of the officers in the shoulder before being fatally shot by the other officer, Minniti said. He added that Amri had been identified “without a shadow of a doubt.”

Minniti lauded the two officers who stopped Amri, and said the one shot in the shoulder was not seriously injured. According to the interior minister, the officer who fatally shot Amri was just 29 years old, and a rookie on the national police force.

Sources confirmed to CBS News on Thursday that Anis Amri was placed on the U.S. no-fly list in July of this year, after German authorities advised he was under investigation for links to terrorism.

CBS News correspondent Charlie D’Agata reported Thursday that investigators trying to piece together his past had determined that Amri crossed into Germany in July 2015. He applied for asylum, but was rejected in July 2016.

He was already known to authorities as a possible terror threat, and had been under surveillance until just three months before this week’s attack because of alleged ties to Abu Walaa, an Iraqi who was arrested in Germany only last month, accused of recruiting fighters for ISIS.