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A HISTORY OF TERROR
Berlin Christmas market massacre suspect filmed himself prowling the streets of Berlin in run-up to attack as it emerges he ‘had offered to be a suicide bomber’ just months ago
FOOTAGE of the Berlin Christmas market massacre suspect patrolling the city's streets just weeks earlier has emerged.
The clip surfaced as German media claimed Anis Amri, 24, had previously offered to be a suicide bomber.
The Tunisian volunteered to blow himself up in online group chats with hate preachers, German paper Bild reports.
And video footage taken by a man alleged to be Amri scoping out the capital's streets has now been uncovered.
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Wearing a black jacket, he appears to walk alongside a river in the Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg district of Berlin - five miles from the Christmas market that was attacked.
The migrant's alleged extremist views come despite Amri's father claiming his son was a hard-drinking petty thief.
Mustapha Amri told : "He worked in farm fields and sometimes with street vendors.
"He drank with his friends, which led to his arrest several times.
"His name also came up in many court cases regarding his use of cannabis, robbery and violence.”
Speaking to Sky News Arabia, brother Abdelkader Amri added: "When he left Tunisia he was a normal person.
"He drank alcohol and didn't even pray. He had no religious beliefs."
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Cops were blasted last night after it emerged that truck terror suspect Amri was free to kill following a string of blunders.
The radical Islamist, who turns 24 today, had been arrested three times this year but each time was released.
But cops stopped watching him in September - dismissing him as a petty drug dealer.
Commandos launched dawn raids at an asylum centre in the western German town of Emmerich as four people were arrested.
Anis Amri remains on the run as detectives frantically try to track him down.
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Yesterday anti-terror officers issued a £85,000 reward as the huge hunt continued for the suspect.
But amazingly Amri's full name and a full face photo cannot be revealed in Germany due to strict privacy rules.
Police would only publish pictures in which his face was obscured.
Tunisian Amri had been under observation for seven months amid fears that he was plotting an atrocity.
It followed a tip-off from federal security agencies.
He was thought to be planning a break-in to pay for automatic weapons needed to carry out an attack.
Cops found evidence he was dealing drugs but nothing to substantiate the original warning.
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Reports suggest Amri first arrived in Europe in 2012 — turning up in Italy and posing as a minor.
He made it into Germany in June last year at the height of the migrants crisis.
But he was refused asylum in April because of fears over links to jihadi hate preachers.
Incredibly he was finally due to be deported yesterday.
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German authorities face embarrassing questions after Amri’s asylum paperwork was found in the footwell of the articulated lorry that was hijacked and driven into shoppers.
Amri’s three arrests included one in July on suspicion of greivous bodily harm following a knife fight.
Some time during the summer he was also nicked on a bus to Berlin.
And was also reportedly arrested in Friedrichshafen, on the border with Switzerland and Liechtenstein, in August carrying fake Italian ID.
Amri also attempted to buy a weapon from an undercover police officer this year and tried to recruit a terror accomplice.
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An anti-terrorism investigator said: “To the best of our knowledge he sought in early 2016 to find an accomplice to carry out an attack.
“He managed to buy a pistol but for whatever reason was not arrested.
“Somewhere along the way he vanished and surfaced again on a telephone intercept three or four months ago and was thought to be in Emmerich, North Rhine-Westphalia.”
In Tunisia, Amri's father, who was not named, said his son had been a violent drug-taking adolescent who was jailed in Italy for setting fire to a migrant reception centre.
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But his sister Najoua said of the Berlin truck attack: "I can't believe my brother could do such a thing."
His brother Abdelkader said: "I'm in shock and can't believe it's him who committed this crime.
"If he's guilty, he deserves every condemnation. We reject terrorism and terrorists."
Amri’s brother Walid, 30, a truck driver from Tunisia, said of his sibling: “About two weeks ago we lost contact on Facebook. I’m just as concerned as everyone else.”
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Investigators said Amri has used six different names under three different nationalites.
German services say he may have had weapons training in the Middle East and attended pro-ISIS sermons.
Amri first came to cops attention living in Dortmund with an Islamist known as Boban S, who has been arrested for supporting IS.
It is also claimed he regularly visited a travel agent in Duisberg linked to Hassan C — said to be a disciple of jailed hate preacher Metin Kaplan, known as the Caliph of Cologne.
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And he is also believed to have attended sermons by hate preacher Abu Walaa, in Hildersheim.
Police raided two apartments in Berlin yesterday but the suspect was not found.
They are also probing a mosque in the city which had previously hosted hate preachers.
Meanwhile, under-fire German authorities have passed new laws to expand its CCTV network in the wake of the atrocity.
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