A friend of Anis Amri who was deported to his native Tunisia following the 2016 Berlin Christmas market attack may have been in Nice around the time of the Bastille Day truck attack, German media have reported.
Image: Reuters/E. Gaillard
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According to a German criminal police document seen by the dpa news agency, Bilal Ben Ammar met with Anis Amri the night before he killed 12 people in a truck attack at Berlin's Breitscheidplatz on December 19, 2016.
Media outlets ARD, Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg (RBB) and the Berliner Morgenpost reported that Ammar may have also been in Nice around the time of the July 14, 2016 truck ramming attack that killed 86 people.
Berlin truck attack survivor
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Boarding pass to Nice
RBB presented a screenshot obtained from German police documents that showed Ammar had a boarding pass on his phone for a flight from Berlin to Nice dated July 6, 2016 — eight days before the Nice attack. The name on the boarding pass was an alias.
Ammar applied for asylum in Germany under different names and separately claimed to be from Morocco, Egypt and Libya.
Investigators found the boarding pass on Ammar's confiscated phone after he had already been deported to Tunisia, Amri's home country. Other photos on the phone showed Ammar in Paris with friends in the days before and after the Nice attack.
The Islamist attacker in Nice used a truck to run down people on Nice's beach boulevard and had scouted the area beforehand. Like Ammar and Amri, he was Tunisian.
It's unclear if Ammar had any contact with the Nice attacker, who is suspected of having had accomplices.
Trucks: New weapon of choice for terrorists
Tuesday's terror attack in New York was the latest in a deadly trend that began less than 16 months ago in France. The gruesome terror attack after a Bastille Day celebration in Nice marked the beginning of a new era.
Image: Reuters/A. Kelly
Nice - Bastille Day (July 14) 2016
A new era of terror appears to have been ushered in when a huge truck plowed through masses of people along a beachfront promenade in the French city of Nice. Some 86 people were killed and at least 300 injured in the carnage. Police said the attacker was raised in Tunisia but moved to France in 2005. He was shot dead by police at the scene of the attack.
Image: Reuters/E. Gaillard
Berlin - December 2016
A truck attack on a Christmas market left 12 dead and 48 injured a week before Christmas. Police said an 'Islamic State' militant hijacked the truck driven by Polish driver Lukasz Urban who tried to alter the direction of the truck, saving lives as he sat in the passenger seat. Urban was killed by the attacker who fled the scene but was shot dead four days later.
Image: Reuters/F. Bensch
Stockholm - April 2017
The back end of a delivery truck was left sticking out from the corner of a department store in downtown Stockholm as police investigators examined the site; 5 people were killed and 14 injured. Police soon arrested a suspect. Appearing in court two days later his lawyer Johan Eriksson told the court that the man "admits to a terrorist crime." He claimed to be an IS supporter.
Image: Reuters/D. Armada
London Bridge attack - June 2017
London endured a trio of truck attacks in 2017 that have left 18 dead and 100 injured. The deadliest attack occured June 3 on London Bridge and the nearby Borough Market, leaving 11 dead and 50 injured. The other vehicle attacks occurred March 22 and June 19; the former left six dead and at least 40 injured, while the latter left one person dead and 10 injured.
Image: Reuters/S. Wermuth
Charlottesville, VA - August 2017
In a bizarre twist a white supremacist took a page from Islamist militants and turned his vehicle into a weapon, plowing into a crowd of people at an anti-fascism rally, which left one person dead and at least 19 injured. Police charged a 20-year-old man with second-degree murder. He was photographed at the rally with Vanguard America, a white supremacist group.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/The Daily Progress/AP/R.M. Kelly
Barcelona - August 2017
A van was used to run down pedestrians on the city's Las Ramblas street; 17 people were killed and at least 100 injured. Several hours later, 75 miles down the coast, a car slammed into a group of people in the town of Cambrils, killing one and injuring five. There were five people in the attack vehicle and police killed all of them. Police confirmed that the two attacks were connected.
Image: Imago/E-Press Photo.com
New York - October 2017
It didn't take long for the suspect to wreak havoc Tuesday in lower Manhattan; eight people were killed and 11 seriously injured. After his truck came to a crashing halt the suspect jumped out with a pellet gun and a paintball gun and shouted "God is great." The 29-year-old suspect was shot by police and taken into custody.
Image: Reuters/A. Kelly
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Investigation into lapses in Berlin attack case
Ammar's hasty deportation from Germany has come under renewed scrutiny as a parliamentary inquiry examines shortcomings in the handling of Amri and the investigation into the Berlin attack.
Following his deportation, German police had zeroed in on Ammar as a potential terrorism suspect who may have been planning another attack.
There have also been media reports that Ammar worked for Moroccan intelligence, something German authorities have denied.
