Berlin attack suspect’s heartbroken family demand he give himself up – but reveal they think he is being made a scapegoat for Christmas market massacre
Anti-terror cops are hunting suspect Anis Amri following truck attack which left 12 dead
THE devastated family of the Tunisian man suspected of carrying out the Berlin massacre insist he has been made a scapegoat for the attack.
Anti-terror cops are hunting Anis Amri who they believe was driving the truck which ploughed into a Christmas market killing a dozen people on Monday.
But his mother says her son has shown no signs of radicalization before the attack which has shocked the world.
Speaking from her hometown of Oueslatia in central Tunisia, Nour El Houda Hassani questions whether her lad was behind the mass murder.
She told the Associated Press: "I want the truth to be revealed about my son.
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“If he is the perpetrator of the attack, let him assume his responsibilities and I'll renounce him before God.
“If he didn't do anything, I want my son's rights to be restored."
The distraught mother claims poverty drove her son to steal and to travel illegally to Europe.
She says Tunisian police took away her telephone on Wednesday and are studying her communications with her son.
She said: "When he talked he was normal. There was no sign of radicalisation."
Speaking in the hometown, where most of the family still live, brother Abdelkader said: “I ask him to turn himself in to the police.
“If it is proved that he is involved, we dissociate ourselves from it.
“When I saw the picture of my brother in the media, I couldn't believe my eyes. 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 - we have no dealings with terrorists.”
The suspect’s sister Najoua struggled to come to terms with the news.
She said: “I can't believe my brother could do such a thing.
“He never made us feel there was anything wrong.
“We were in touch through Facebook and he was always smiling and cheerful.”
German authorities issued a wanted notice for Amri on Wednesday after his fingerprints and ID documents were found in the vehicle.
One of his brothers still in Tunisia, Abdelkader Amri, urged him to hand himself over to cops.
He told AP: “I ask him to turn himself in to the police. If it is proved that he is involved, we dissociate ourselves from it.”
He said Amri may have been radicalised in prison in Italy, where he went after leaving Tunisia in the wake of the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings.
Speaking to from the impoverished village near the city of Kairouan, the suspect's father Mustapha Amri said his son had been in trouble with the law before he left for Italy.
"He left Tunisia March 2011 in what is called ‘al-Horqa’, a wave of illegal immigration shortly after the uprising," his father said.
"He dropped out of school and travelled to Italy; he was involved in a robbery and a case of burning down a school and camp.
"He spent four years in jail in Italy where he met extremist groups which attracted him."
Mustapha Amri says that he travelled to Germany with a group of refugees and told authorities he was a Syrian fleeing the war there.
He added: "He called his siblings but never spoke to me, he never sent money, but he once sent a mobile phone and a box of chocolates with a Tunisian friend of his who lived in Italy."
The father said that Amri turned to drugs and alcohol to escape the poverty around him.
“He was like all the other kids in the village, he went to primary school near here, and continued his secondary school in Kairouan but he dropped out due to poverty,” he said.
“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.”
He also said his son was a keen football fan who was not religious and had lots of girlfriends.
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