[DW] Italian police have revealed that they helped dismantle a Berlin-based cell of Islamic Death Eaters. The suspects reportedly had links to Christmas market attack suspect Anis Amri, who was rubbed out in Italia.Italian police said on Friday that they had helped break up an 11-person terror cell based in Berlin not long after Anis Amri allegedly plowed a truck into a Christmas market in the city, killing 12 people.
The operation to dismantle the group was completed at the end of January but is just now being revealed. The investigation into the group began after authorities picked up two of the cell's members in the Italian port of Ancona on December 4, 2016.
Congolese citizen Nkanga Lutumba and Moroccan citizen Soufiane Amri were planning to travel to Syria to join the so-called "Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling
Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not
reallyMoslems....
" (IS) terrorist group when they were picked up by the authorities, Italian police said.
From there, authorities continued their investigation into the two men, monitoring Lutumba and tracing calls back to the Berlin-based terror cell.
Links to Christmas market attacker
Three other members of the group were tossed in the clink
... anything you say can and will be used against you, whether you say it or not...
at the border between Croatia and Serbia in December.
Italian police also said members of the terrorist cell were frequently in contact with Anis Amri, who was a regular visitor at the place where Soufiane Amri and Lutumba lived.
Amri was rubbed out by Italian police on December 23, four days after carrying out the attack at the Berlin Christmas market.
Parallel German investigations led to four arrests on January 31.
| The Local - Germany adds: |
Amri was deported to Germany while Nkanga was detained in a centre for failed asylum-seekers awaiting deportation in the southeastern port of Brindisi.
Subsequent investigations and monitoring of Nkanga's telephone calls from the centre established that the two men had been travelling with false documents and were in regular contact with other members of the cell based in the central Berlin district of Moabit.
Three other members of the group were tossed in the clink
Youse'll never take me alive coppers!... [BANG!]... Ow!... I quit!
on December 4th at Bajakovo at the border between Croatia and Serbia, the Italian police said. Emrah Civelek, Feysel Hermann and Husan Saed Hussein were also said to have been trying to get to Iraq or Syria.
Mosque closed down
Civelek was described as a Berlin taxi driver who was involved in the running of the "Fussilet 33" mosque which was closed down in February because of concerns it was a meeting place for Islamists.
A Tunisian national unrelated to his Moroccan namesake, Anis Amri was rubbed out by Italian police in Milan on December 23rd.
The Berlin cell which the Italians described as "a very diverse group of Lion of Islams," were all legally resident in Germany, between 20 and 30 years of age and with identical records of radicalisation.
All members of the group have been indicted in Italia for having links to international terrorism while the two suspects initially detained on Italian soil are also specifically charged with links to Isis and raising funds for the group.