The Tunisian man, who has been the subject of a Europe-wide manhunt since Monday's market attack in which 12 people were killed, was stopped in Sesto San Giovanni -- a district in the northeastern part of Milan -- just after 3am local time,
Italian police said on Twitter. A video released Friday on ISIS-affiliated website, Amaq, shows Amri pledging allegiance to the group's leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. He does not refer to Monday's attack. When the man was asked for his papers by Italian police, he pulled a .22 calibre gun out of his backpack and fired at them.
A man identified as Amri, then aged 18, sits with his hood up as he watches police on Italy’s Mediterranean island.
Taken on 3 April 2011, he would have just made the treacherous sea crossing from his native Tunisia in a bid to escape the Arab Spring revolutions sweeping the Middle East. Five years later, Amri brought death to the streets of Germany after he was radicalised in an Italian prison.
The ISIS extremist ploughed a lorry into festive shoppers at a Berlin Christmas market on Monday night.
Rewind five years, and just days after arriving on Lampedusa trouble-maker Amri was involved in the burning down of a migrant shelter.
His four-year spell in an Italian jail saw him
radicalised by extremists who admired ISIS. Speaking to
The Times Amri's father Mustapha Amri said: “He left Tunisia March 2011 in what is called ‘al-Horqa’, a wave of illegal immigration shortly after the uprising.
“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. "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 extent of Amri's radicalisation was revealed with his callous killing of 12 innocent people at the
German Christmas market on Monday.
In a pledge of allegiance to terror group ISIS, he said: "My message to crusaders bombing Muslims everyday… Their blood will not go in vain.
“We are a nation behind them and will take revenge for them. Adding his allegiance to terror leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, he continues: “I call on my Muslim brothers everywhere… Those in Europe, kill the crusader pigs, each person to their own ability.”
Amri was brought down by Italian police at 3am this morning after officers asked him to show his ID.
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