MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Barrett said live cases referred to people who came to attention of German security services in connection to radical jihadist extremism and were "worthy of some sort of examination." He stressed this was an "almost impossible number to control."
"In Germany alone, I reckon there’re about 550 really extreme potential terrorists on the books. In addition to that, if you include all the Laender [states] in Germany, they have about 7,000 live cases," Barrett told The BBC broadcaster.
The sole suspect in the Berlin Christmas market attack is Anis Amri, a Tunisian asylum seeker who was under surveillance for several months this year after coming to Germany in 2015. He had a crime record and reportedly offered to serve as a suicide bomber.
