Reuters - Security for the
long Christmas weekend was heightened throughout Italy and at the Vatican on
Saturday following the killing by police of the man believed to be
responsible
for the Berlin market truck attack.
As investigators
sought to determine if Anis Amri had accomplices in Italy, and associates of
the 24-year-old were arrested in his home country of Tunisia, national security
officials were taking no chances.
Rome authorities
banned vans or trucks from entering the city center and anti-terror police
wearing masks and wielding machine guns set up roadblocks on routes leading to
famous tourist sites or areas where crowds traditionally gather.
At the Vatican,
where Pope Francis was due to celebrate Christmas Eve Mass in St. Peter's
basilica on Saturday evening, police cars and military jeeps stood about every
100 meters (yards) along streets leading to the Vatican.
Security was also
stepped up in central Milan and other Italian cities, particularly near major
churches where faithful were attending Christmas services.
After reconstructing
Amri's movements since he drove a truck through a festive market in Berlin on
Monday, killing 12 people, police are investigating whether he was seeking
shelter from comrades in Italy or was en route to another country.
The town where Amri
was killed, Sesto San Giovanni, is home to a sizeable Muslim community and is a
departure point for buses to southern Italy, eastern Europe and the Balkans.
Amri had traveled
undetected to Italy from Germany via France, taking advantage of Europe's
open-border Schengen pact. He was shot dead in the town on the outskirts of
Milan early on Friday after he pulled a gun on police during a routine check.
In a video released
on Friday after his death, he is seen pledging his allegiance to militant group
Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
ARRESTS
On Saturday,
Tunisian security forces arrested three suspected militants, including Amri's
nephew, who had been in touch with Amri by social media messaging.
Spain's interior
minister Juan Ignacio Zoido said its intelligence services were investigating a
possible connection via Internet between Amri and a Spanish resident on Dec. 19.
Amri originally came
to Europe in 2011, landing with other migrants on the island of Lampedusa, and
spent four years in an Italian jail for trying to set a school on fire in
Sicily.
German authorities
have complained they were unaware of Amri's criminal past.
"Convicted
criminals from all countries need to be listed in a European database so that
we know when and where they are when they cross our borders or ask for
asylum," German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere told Bild am Sonntag
newspaper.
Italians have been
moved by the story of 31-year-old Fabrizia di Lorenzo, who survived two heart
operations only to be killed in the truck attack in Berlin, where she was
living.
President Sergio
Mattarella went to Rome's Ciampino military airport on Saturday morning to
grieve with her family as her body was returned from Germany. The arrival was
broadcast live on Italian television.
Concerns about
potential extremist violence also clouded the Christmas weekend in France,
where the authorities said more than 91,000 policemen and soldiers would be
deployed, with additional security at churches.
Fears of attacks by
Islamist militants are running high in France, where more than 230 people have
been killed in assaults in the past two years.
Emergency rule has
been in place since Islamist militants killed 130 people in Paris in November
2015, giving police wider search and arrest powers to target suspects
considered a threat to security.
Reuters
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