© picture alliance/dpa/B. Pedersen
The German Interior Ministry deported a Moroccan secret agent to hide his involvement in the
December 2016 Christmas market attack in Berlin, according to an internal document leaked to the German magazine
Focus.
However, sources within
German security forces have since told public broadcaster ARD that they had no evidence that Ammar worked for any foreign intelligence agency, and were angered at the suggestion that German authorities may have protected him.
Bilel Ben Ammar,
himself considered a radical Islamist who was once believed to be planning a separate attack in Berlin, was an associate of Anis Amri, the Tunisian man who drove a stolen truck into a crowded Christmas market in central Berlin. The attack killed 12 people and injuring 60 more, while Amri himself was killed by police a few days later in Italy.
According to the document seen by
Focus,
Ammar met Amri a day before the attack, and took photos of the market in its aftermath, which he sent to an unknown phone number two hours later.
Ammar may even have helped the attacker to escape; CCTV footage mentioned in the document showed a man "with the appearance of Ben Ammar" hit a man on the head with a piece of wood in order to clear a path for the escaping attacker. The man is still in a coma now,
Focus reported.
All this would be new evidence for the parliamentary committee tasked with investigating the attack, whose members have no knowledge of the video, though they did not rule out that it exists.
Comment: It's likely there's much 'wheeling and dealing' over this border wall. For instance Trump could have been promised funds for his wall if he went along with the Venezuelan propaganda. If something like that could be the case, then we'll probably see this resolution quashed in the Senate.