The Islamist terrorist attack on the Berlin Christmas market on Breitscheidplatz was almost five years ago. But the crime has still not been cleared up without a doubt – even though the investigations have been concluded and two parliamentary committees of inquiry have tried to shed light on the exact circumstances of the crime, in which twelve people were killed and dozen others were injured, some seriously. Last year, a 13th victim died of the aftermath of the attack.
It is clear that the rejected Tunisian asylum seeker Anis Amri drove into the Christmas market stalls with a stolen truck as a deadly weapon. He had previously murdered the Polish driver. Amri was able to leave the scene undetected and fled to Italy, where he was shot by the police a few days after the crime. But was he really the single perpetrator the security authorities always referred to him as?
Research by Rundfunks Berlin-Brandenburg (rbb) has now brought further indications of a possible client to light. This man is said to be from Iraq and a high-ranking member of the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group. The rbb has now researched its real name. His name is Ali Hazim Aziz. His IS name Abu Bara’a Al Iraqi was already known to the authorities. Nevertheless, the police and secret services apparently did not follow this lead.
For the film, the rbb spoke to a former IS official who confirmed that Aziz was responsible for planning attacks in Europe. He is still alive. The interviewee did not confirm that Aziz had also given the order for the attack on the Berlin Christmas market.
Both the Federal Intelligence Service (BND) and the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) only dealt with this information briefly, according to the television documentary that was broadcast on ARD late Monday evening. It quoted the FDP politician Benjamin Strasser, who had asked a high-ranking BND official about Abu Bara’a Al Iraqi in the Bundestag investigation committee. The official dismissed this trace as “banal”. Later, on further inquiries, Strasser said that the reference to the man behind had probably “petered out.”
The Green politician Irene Mihalic, chairwoman of the Bundestag’s committee of inquiry into the attack, and the deputy parliamentary group leader Konstantin von Notz called for further investigations to take place on Tuesday. “We now expect the security authorities to follow up immediately and resolutely on this information about another person involved in the crime – probably even the actual mastermind and client of the attack from the IS command hierarchy – and leave no stone unturned to bring him to the German criminal prosecution,” it said in one Press release by the two politicians.
The fact that the RBB had succeeded in identifying the person who is apparently still alive once again did not throw a good light on the investigations, communication and the commitment of the responsible security authorities after the largest jihadist attack in the history of the Federal Republic of Germany, it said further. The members of the investigative committee had repeatedly found that the heads of the security authorities “were rather unambitious to listless to identify possible backers, supporters and accomplices as well as networks”. The Greens also pointed this out in their special vote on the final report.
Mihalic and von Notz now expect the responsible bodies of the German Bundestag to “provide comprehensive, seamless and quick information about this process and the progress of the investigation”. This is also owed to the victims and bereaved relatives of the attack: “We already sent corresponding requests for reports yesterday.”
The FDP politician Strasser, who recently became State Secretary in the Federal Ministry of Justice, is also calling for consequences. “I expect the investigative authorities to investigate in the interests of our security and to pursue all leads,” he told the Berliner Zeitung on Tuesday. “The parliamentary supervisory body of the Bundestag must now decide whether there is a need for further advice on the basis of this new information.”
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