A car ploughed into people shopping at a Christmas market in eastern Germany on Friday, leaving dozens wounded in what officials are saying was a targeted attack.
Security was increased at Christmas markets, and a memorial service was held for the victims.
The Saudi suspect in Germany’s deadly car-ramming attack on a Christmas market held strongly anti-Islam views and was angry with Germany’s migration policies, officials said Saturday.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz condemned the “terrible, insane” attack that killed five people and shocked the nation, days before Christmas and eight years after a jihadist drove a truck into a Christmas market in Berlin.
Still from video shared online which purportedly shows a car ploughing into a crowd at a Christmas market in the German city of Magdeburg.
Police were puzzling over the motive of Taleb al-Abdulmohsen, the top suspect after a car ploughed at high speed through a dense crowd on Friday local time, also injuring 205 people in the eastern city of Magdeburg.
The mass carnage sparked sorrow and revulsion, with a 9-year-old child among the dead and casualties being treated in 15 regional hospitals.
Germany has been hit by multiple deadly jihadist attacks, but evidence gathered by investigators and his past online posts painted a different picture of Abdulmohsen, a 50-year-old doctor of psychiatry.
Meet Taleb Al Abdulmohsen, the coward who mowed people down in a car at a Christmas market in Magdeburg (Germany) last night.
What do we know about Taleb?
• He is a NON-MUSLIM (an ex-Muslim).
• He is a SUPPORTER of the @AfD (who @elonmusk believes will “save Germany”).
A self-described “Saudi atheist” who as an activist helped women flee the oil-rich kingdom, he has railed against Islam but also against what he saw as Germany’s permissive attitude towards refugees from other mainly Muslim countries.
Interior Minister Nancy Fraser said he held “Islamophobic” views, and a prosecutor said that “the background to the crime ... could have been disgruntlement with the way Saudi Arabian refugees are treated in Germany”.
Taha Al-Hajji of the Berlin-based European Saudi Organisation for Human Rights told AFP that Abdulmohsen was “a psychologically disturbed person with an exaggerated sense of self-importance”.
Debris and closed stalls are seen at a Christmas market one day after a car-ramming attack in Magdeburg, eastern Germany. Photo / AFP
Call for unity
Abdulmohsen in his online posts spoke about his troubles with and suspicions of German authorities.
Last August, he posted on social media: “Is there a path to justice in Germany without blowing up a German embassy or randomly slaughtering German citizens? ... If anyone knows it, please let me know.”
The suspect in the Magdeburg Christmas Market attack is an anti-Islam activist who supports the far-right AfD party. A fan of Tommy Robinson, Alex Jones and Elon Musk. And yet racist accounts on here are still spreading misinformation that he is Muslim. pic.twitter.com/nka4x5S4Zy
Die Welt daily reported, citing security sources, that German state and federal police had carried out a “risk assessment” on him last year but concluded that he posed “no specific danger”.
A sombre Scholz, dressed in black, visited the attack site together with national and regional politicians laying flowers outside the main church in Magdeburg.
Mourning and bereaved residents have left candles, flowers, cards and children’s toys at the Johanneskirche church, where a memorial service was planned at 7pm (7am NZT).
People lay flowers and candles at the official memorial site at St John's Church in Magdeburg after five people were killed and hundreds injured. Photo / Getty
Scholz pledged the state would respond “with the full force of the law” to the attack but also called for unity as Germany has been rocked by a heated debate on immigration and security ahead of elections in February.
The centre-left Chancellor said it was important “that we stick together, that we link arms, that it is not hatred that determines our coexistence but the fact that we are a community that seeks a common future”.
He said he was grateful for expressions of “solidarity ... from many, many countries around the world. It is good to hear that we as Germans are not alone in the face of this terrible catastrophe”.
‘Sad and shocked’
Surveillance video footage of the attack showed a black BMW racing straight through the crowd, scattering bodies amid the festive stalls that were selling traditional handicrafts, snacks and mulled wine.
On Saturday, debris and discarded medical materials blew across the cordoned-off site, where stalls now stand empty around a giant Christmas tree, the event cancelled for the year out of respect for the victims.
Taleb al-Abdulmohsen, a 50-year-old from Saudi Arabia, was named as the man arrested over the Magdeburg Christmas market attack,
The leader of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), Alice Weidel, which has focused on jihadist attacks in its campaign against immigrants, wrote on X: “When will this madness stop?”
“What happened today affects a lot of people. It affects us a lot,” Fael Kelion, a 27-year-old Cameroonian living in the city, told AFP.
“I think that since [the suspect] is a foreigner, the population will be unhappy, less welcoming.”
Michael Raarig, 67 and an engineer, said that: “I am sad, I am shocked. I never would have believed this could happen, here in an east German provincial town”.
He added that he believed the attack “will play into the hands of the AfD” which has had its strongest support in the formerly communist eastern Germany.
Security was stepped up this weekend at Christmas markets elsewhere in Germany with more police seen in Hamburg, Leipzig, and other cities.
German footballers were holding a minute’s silence and wearing black armbands in weekend matches in tribute to the victims.
The regional Evangelical church announced that at 7.03pm “the time of yesterday’s attack on the Christmas market, the bells of all churches in Magdeburg and many places of worship in the surrounding area will ring”.
