German police hunt Tunisian man over Berlin Christmas market attack

Italy’s interior minister was to hold a news conference at 10.45 a.m. (4:45 a.m. ET) the ministry said.

“The Amri case raises questions”, she said. “We will now examine with urgency to what degree state practices must be changed”.

“He was the most wanted man in Europe and we immediately identified him and neutralized him”.

Italian media is reporting Amri was shot dead after he exchanged gunfire with police who had stopped him near a rail station.

Shouting “Allah Akbar”, or “God is Great”, the suspect fired at the officers hitting one of them in the shoulder before he was shot dead by police.

Prosecutors also want to know whether the gun Amri was carrying in Milan was the same one used to shoot the Polish driver of the truck he had commandeered for the attack, Frank added. After fleeing from Germany and through France, he was shot dead by Italian police in Milan on Friday. He had a few hundred euros on him but no telephone.

More than 4,000 Tunisians have left to join Islamic State and other militant groups overseas, recruited by hardline preachers or online networks.

Sources confirm to CBS News 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.

A reporter in Germany reported speaking to Amri’s family.

European officials had been searching for the Tunisian-born Amri since Wednesday after releasing a previously detained man due to a lack of evidence.

Shortly after his arrival in Italy he was sentenced to a four-year prison term for starting a fire in a refugee centre. He was released in 2015 and made his way to Germany.

Amri is suspected in Monday’s truck attack on a Christmas market in Berlin. He had been under police surveillance between March and September of this year.

Flowers and posters are placed at the scene where a truck plowed into a crowded Christmas market in the German capital last night in Berlin, Germany, on December 20, 2016.