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Suspect In Berlin Attack Released From Custody

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German Chancellor Angela Merkel (C), German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier (L), German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere (4thL) and Berlin's mayor Michael Mueller (2ndL) walk through the Christmas market of the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedaechtniskirche (Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church), the day after an attack at the nearby Christmas market in central Berlin, on Dec. 20, 2016. German police said they were treating as "a probable terrorist attack" the killing of 12 people when the speeding lorry cut a bloody swath through the packed Berlin Christmas market. (Tobias Schwarz/AFP/Getty Images)
German Chancellor Angela Merkel (C), German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier (L), German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere (4thL) and Berlin's mayor Michael Mueller (2ndL) walk through the Christmas market of the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedaechtniskirche (Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church), the day after an attack at the nearby Christmas market in central Berlin, on Dec. 20, 2016. German police said they were treating as "a probable terrorist attack" the killing of 12 people when the speeding lorry cut a bloody swath through the packed Berlin Christmas market. (Tobias Schwarz/AFP/Getty Images)

German prosecutors say a man arrested after the truck attack on a Berlin Christmas market has been released because there isn't sufficient evidence to tie him to the rampage.

Federal prosecutors said Tuesday that the man, a Pakistani citizen who came to Germany last year as an asylum-seeker, denied involvement in the attack that killed 12 people and injured nearly 50 others.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Tuesday that "we must assume at the current time that it was a terrorist attack."

NPR’s Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson (@sorayanelson) speaks with Here & Now’s Meghna Chakrabarti about how the attack will resonate politically in a country torn on how to deal with Europe’s refugee crisis.

With reporting from The Associated Press

This article was originally published on December 20, 2016.

This segment aired on December 20, 2016.

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