Former government lawyer Bruno Jost spoke of “glaring omissions” which allowed the bogus asylum seeker to carry out mass murder and said the “chaos” of the refugee crisis in Germany aided the killer.
Herr Jost’s report uses the words “defective”, “inadequate”, “late”, “failed”, “defective”, “unprofessional” to describe the failures of the state in stopping Amri before the December 19 attack.
The Berlin Senate instructed Jost to critically examine the actions of the authorities and his findings in a 72 page report make uncomfortable reading for the authorities.
The assassin Amri murdered twelve people and injured nearly 100 more. Many of them have been traumatised to this day, some still in hospital, some will need care for the rest of their lives.
Herr Jost said that if police and prosecutors had acted properly there was a “high possibility” the IS sleeper could have been in custody two to three months before the attack.
Berlin police had him marked down as an urgent case – but hard-pressed State Criminal Office agents suspended surveillance of him after a few weeks.
Herr Jost notes that when he was being tailed “All observations are limited to the weekdays Monday to Friday, even in the weeks in which Amri was classified as the number one risk to Berliners. There were no observations made on weekends and holidays. “
The ex-Federal attorney concludes that the findings on Amir’s Islamist activities alone would not have been enough to take him into custody.
However, from his point of view, it would have been a “great opportunity “to withdraw him from the for drug trafficking.
Tapped telephone calls testified to the “substantial volume of Amri’s drug trade” from early summer 2016. But because of a “confusion” between the police and the judiciary, the opportunity was squandered.
Herr Jost sharply criticised the Berlin General Prosecutor’s Office over its handling of the affair.
According to the report, the head of the General Prosecutor’s Office informed the Chief of the Narcotics Department of the public prosecutor only in October 2016 by telephone that a probe was underway.
However, the drug investigator did not want to know when the proceedings would be concluded, who the target was and who was working with police.
“This ambiguity”, said Herr Jost,”led to a real responsibility gap”. The fatal consequence: in the months before the attack, apparently no one in the judiciary felt responsible for Anis Amri.
And he further charges that criminal files were “manipulated” in the aftermath of the slaughter to try to conceal failings. A separate enquiry into those allegations is underway.
Herr Jost also hammered authorities in North Rhône-Westphalia and Baden-Württemberg for failing to stop Tunisian-born Amri.
He was arrested in Friedrichshafen in the summer of last year with two Italians but released soon afterwards. Jost said this was a perfect time to hold him and deport him.