Magdeburg Christmas market attack suspect faces murder charges
Police in Germany have said a man suspected of killing at least five people and injuring hundreds more after a car was driven at speed through a crowded Christmas market faces charges of murder and attempted murder.
The suspect, named by German media as Taleb al-Abdulmohsen, a 50-year-old psychiatrist from Saudi Arabia who arrived in Germany in 2006, was remanded in custody late on Saturday after the attack in the central town of Magdeburg on Friday night.
Police said on Sunday that prosecutors had pressed charges of murder and attempted murder against Abdulmohsen, an anti-Islam activist who has made death threats online against German citizens and has a history of disputes with state authorities.
While thousands mourned the victims, identified as four women aged 52, 45, 75 and 67 and a nine-year-old boy, about 2,100 people attended a far-right rally billed as a ?demonstration against terror?, local media reported.
Protesters at the rally wore black balaclavas and were filmed holding a large banner with the word ?remigration?, a term popular with anti-immigration extremists seeking the mass deportation of migrants and people deemed not ethnically German.
The government is facing growing questions about whether more could have been done to prevent the attack, which injured 205 people, 40 of whom were in a critical condition.
Teams of surgeons have been working around the clock since the first survivors of the attack arrived, with one health worker telling local media of ?blood on the floor everywhere, people screaming, lots of painkillers being administered?.
1:13 Germany: police arrest suspect after deadly attack at Magdeburg Christmas market ? video report
Abdulmohsen has described himself as a former Muslim and was an active user of the social media platform X, sharing dozens of posts daily focusing mainly on anti-Islam themes, criticising the religion and congratulating Muslims who had left it.
He had helped women flee Gulf countries, complained that Germany was not doing enough to help them, and also accused German authorities of failing to do enough to combat what he referred to as the ?Islamification of Europe?.
As recently as August, Abdulmohsen also wrote 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.?
He also posted on X that he wished Germany?s former chancellor Angela Merkel could be jailed for life or executed, and in 2013 he was fined by a court in the city of Rostock for ?disturbing the public peace by threatening to commit crimes?.
This year he was investigated in Berlin for the ?misuse of emergency calls? after arguing with officers at a police station, local media reported. He had been on sick leave from his workplace, an addiction clinic near Magdeburg, since late October.
Mina Ahadi, the chair of an association of former Muslims in Germany, said Abdulmohsen was ?no stranger to us, because he has been terrorising us for years?. She labelled him ?a psychopath who adheres to ultra-right conspiracy ideologies?.
Der Spiegel magazine cited security sources as saying the Saudi secret service had alerted Germany?s spy agency BND last year to a post in which Abdulmohsen threatened Germany would pay a price for its treatment of Saudi refugees.
Die Welt newspaper, citing security sources, reported that German state and federal police had carried out a risk assessment of Abdulmohsen which concluded that he posed ?no specific danger?.
The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, on Saturday condemned the ?terrible, insane? attack and issued a call for national unity amid mounting political tension in the country as it heads towards federal elections on 23 February.
1:09 Olaf Scholz calls for unity at site of deadly attack in Magdeburg ? video
Opposition parties on the far right and far left were swift to criticise his government. The far-right AfD?s parliamentary leader, Bernd Baumann, demanded Scholz call a special session of the Bundestag on the ?desolate? security situation.
The head of the far-left BSW party, Sahra Wagenknecht, said the interior minister, Nancy Faeser, must formally explain ?why so many tips and warnings were ignored beforehand?.
The mass-circulation daily Bild demanded to know: ?Why did our police and intelligence services do nothing, even though they had the Saudi on their radar? ? And why were the tips from Saudi Arabia apparently ignored??
Calling for sweeping reforms after the election and a complete ?turnaround in internal security?, the paper claimed: ?German authorities usually only find out about attack plans in time when foreign services warn them.?
Hungary?s prime minister, Viktor Orb?n, said on Saturday there was ?no doubt that there is a link between the changed world in western Europe, the migration that flows there, especially illegal migration, and terrorist acts?.
Orb?n vowed to ?fight back? against European migration policies ?because Brussels wants Magdeburg to happen to Hungary, too?.
Reuters and Agence-France Presse contributed to this report
