The Berlin market attacker, Anis Amri, has been killed by a junior officer after he opened fire when stopped by police in Milan.
Italian police officers secure traces after the suspect of the Berlin attack Anis Amri had been killed during a shoot-out with police forces in Milan, Italy, 23 December 2016. Photo: AFP
Amri, who was on foot, "immediately drew out a gun" and shot at officers Cristian Movio and Luca Scata, who asked him for ID during a routine patrol in the Sesto San Giovanni area at 3am local time on Friday, Italian Interior Minister Marco Minniti said.
Mr Movio was shot and injured in the shoulder but Mr Scata, who had been in the police for just nine months, shot and killed Amri.
German authorities said fingerprints they provided had confirmed the dead man was Amri. They were still trying to find out if he had accomplices.
The attack at a busy Christmas market at the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church in the west of Berlin on Monday evening left 12 people dead and 49 injured.
Police patrols at the reopened Christmas market near the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church in Berlin. Photo: AFP
German officials found Amri's fingerprints inside the truck used in the attack.
Investigators were also still trying to establish whether the gun used in the shooting in Milan was the same weapon used to kill the Polish truck driver who was found dead in the cab of the truck with stab and gun wounds.
The German authorities issued an alert for Amri on Wednesday after immigration documents identifying him were found in the cab of the lorry used in the deadly attack.
A Tunisian national aged 24, he had served a prison sentence in Italy after being convicted of vandalism, threats and theft in 2011.
Italian police and forensics experts gather around the body of suspected Berlin truck attacker Anis Amri after he was shot dead in Milan. Photo: AFP
He was known to Italian authorities for his violent behaviour while imprisoned.
After his release he was asked to leave the country. He later arrived in Germany where he applied for asylum in April of this year.
His application was rejected by the German authorities but they were unable to deport him to Tunisia because he had no valid identification papers.
According to the Italian news agency Ansa, he had travelled by train from France to Turin, and then taken another train to Milan.
From the central station he travelled on to Sesto San Giovanni in Milan, a working-class area.
Amri's family had urged him to give himself up, and on Friday his mother criticised Italian and German security officials for not sending him back to Tunisia, where the rest of the family still live, in an interview with German broadcaster Deutsche Welle.
Walid Amri, the brother of Anis Amri who was the prime suspect in Berlin's deadly truck attack shot dead in Milan, poses with a portrait of his brother in front of the family house in the town of Oueslatia, in Tunisia's region of Kairouan. Photo: AFP
A spokesman for Germany's interior ministry would not comment on reports in the German media that Amri had been filmed at a mosque in Berlin in the hours after the attack.
Separately, police arrested two people in the German city of Oberhausen on suspicion of planning an attack on a shopping centre.
Mr Minniti praised the two police officers who had apprehended Amri, and said the operation showed how Italy's security system was working well.
"As soon as this person entered our country, a fugitive wanted across Europe, we immediately identified him and neutralised him," the minister said.
German Interior Minister Thomas Maiziere said the case again highlighted the importance of close European and transatlantic co-operation in combating terrorism.
The end of the manhunt was not the end of the investigation, he said, as the authorities were still seeking Amri's "network of accomplices".
Mr de Maiziere added: "The terrorist threat facing Germany has not changed, unfortunately it remains high."
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she was "relieved" that the attacker had been neutralised but added that Islamist terrorism was "a recurring threat to us".
Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel gives a statement on Anis Amri at the Chancellory. Photo: AFP
Her government's main priority was to protect German citizens, she told journalists, adding that this case had raised "many questions".
"Further changes to our laws and regulations will have to be made," Mrs Merkel said at a news conference.
But leading Eurosceptics - including French National Front leader Marine Le Pen - have criticised open European borders, a result of the Schengen pact, for allowing a fugitive to move between countries.
- BBC