TUNIS // Tunisian antiterrorism police were on Wednesday questioning the family of Anis Amri, the prime suspect in the deadly attack on a Christmas market in Berlin.
German prosecutors named the 24-year-old Tunisian national as their main suspect on Wednesday after finding asylum papers in the 40-tonne lorry used in the Berlin attack.
German authorities are offering €100,000 (Dh384,000) as a reward for information leading to Mr Amri’s arrest. Police also warned he could be violent and armed.
It was unclear whether the suspect’s brother and four sisters were also being questioned.
A security source said Mr Amri, who left Tunisia for Italy after the 2011 uprising, had been arrested several times in Tunisia for alleged drug use.
His father said he served four years in jail in Italy on accusations of burning down a school and that he left Italy for Germany a year ago.
Mr Amri had been under investigation for planning an act of violence against the state, said Ralf Jaeger, the interior minister of Germany’s North Rhine-Westphalia state.
His request for asylum in Germany was rejected in June.
Mr Jaeger accused Tunisia of delaying Mr Amri’s extradition from Germany for months, saying papers had only arrived on Wednesday.
“Tunisia disputed the fact that this person was one of its nationals,” he said.
Police are focusing their search for the Tunisian suspect in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia.
A previous suspect – a 23-year-old Pakistani asylum seeker – was released on Tuesday for lack of evidence, prompting fears of a killer on the loose and further rattling nerves in a shocked country.
The attack killed 12 people and was claimed by ISIL.
Twenty-four people remain in hospital, 14 of them in serious condition, said German interior minister Thomas de Maiziere.
The ISIL-linked Amaq news agency said ISIL carried out the Berlin carnage in response to appeals to target citizens of coalition countries.
There was no evidence to back the claim.
Federal prosecutors said on Tuesday they had to release the only suspect in custody after finding no forensic evidence to link him to the attack.
The Pakistani man was detained on Monday after reportedly being seen jumping out of the lorry and fleeing the scene. But officials had expressed growing doubts over whether they had the right suspect and he denied the charges under repeated questioning.
* Agence France-Presse, Reuters and Associated Press