Berlin attack suspect ‘spent four years in Italian jail’

German authorities were under fire Thursday after it emerged that the prime suspect in Berlin’s deadly truck attack, a rejected Tunisian asylum seeker, was known as a potentially unsafe jihadist.

Anis Amri is being sought by German police in connection with the Christmas market truck ramming in Berlin.

He is said to be armed and unsafe and operates using six different aliases under three different nationalities.

Multiple German media outlets, citing unnamed sources, say the police are now looking for a Tunisian man with several aliases, after his temporary residency papers were found under the seat of the cab in the tractor-trailer.

The prosecutors are also offering a €100,000 ($104,000) reward for information leading to Amri’s arrest and warning he “could be violent and armed”.

German media had previously identified the suspected driver of the truck in question as a 23-year-old from Pakistan named Naved B.

Reports suggest intelligence services might have even lost track of Amri as recently as just a few weeks ago after he went underground.

One of Mr Amri’s brothers urged him to turn himself in.

Chancellor Merkel said Tuesday the attack was a “terrorist act” and voiced fears – speaking before police backtracked on the Pakistani detainee – that the rampage was committed by an asylum seeker.

Another suspect arrested early this morning was later released, German broadcaster RBB reported. “I hope that what this person did won’t tarnish the reputation of refugees like us who are very grateful to Germany”. “If it is proved that he is involved, we dissociate ourselves from it”, brother Abdelkader Amri told The Associated Press.

The interior ministry said there was no reason to close Germany’s popular Christmas markets.

– PolizeiBerlinEinsatz (@PolizeiBerlin_E) December 19, 2016Der Beifahrer des LKW, der am #Breitscheidplatz in den Weihnachtsmarkt gefahren ist, verstarb vor Ort.

The group’s Amaq news agency declared the perpetrator to be an ISIS soldier who “executed the operation in response to calls to target nationals of the coalition countries”.

According to the identity documents found in the truck, the suspect was born in Tataouine, Tunisia, in 1992 and traveled to Italy in 2012 before arriving in July 2015 in Germany, where he applied for asylum.

The German government said Merkel spoke Tuesday with President Barack Obama, who expressed his condolences.

“We reject terrorism and terrorists, we have no dealings with terrorists”, he added.