German police have charged a Saudi man with murder and attempted murder in connection with the killing of at least five people and hundreds of injuries after he drove a car into a busy Christmas market.
Following the incident in the central town of Magdeburg on Friday night, the suspect, who was identified by German media as Taleb al-Abdulmohsen, a 50-year-old Saudi psychiatrist who came to Germany in 2006, was placed under detention in custody late on Saturday.
In a statement on Sunday, police stated prosecutors charged Abdulmohsen, an anti-Islam activist with an extensive record of conflicts with state authorities and a history of threatening German civilians with death online, has been charged with murder and attempted murder.
The deceased were identified as four women and a nine-year-old kid.
German govt faces questions over Christmas market attack
Meanwhile, a far-right event dubbed a “demonstration against terror” drew 2,100 attendees. Wearing black balaclavas, protesters at the event were captured on camera brandishing a giant banner that read “remigration,” a term that is used among anti-immigration extremists who want to deport migrants and others who are thought to be non-German.
Thee government is coming under increasing pressure if more efforts could have been taken to halt the attack, which wounded over 205 people, including 40 people facing critical condition. ‘
Taleb al-Abdulmohsen made online death threats against German citizens
Abdulmohsen, who is an anti-Islamic activist, has been residing in Germany for nearly twenty years.
The suspect had previously threatened German civilians online and had a history of clashing with state officials, according to many media reports. A year ago, the Saudi secret service alerted Germany’s espionage agency BND about a tweet in which Abdulmohsen threatened to charge Germany with paying a “price” for its treatment of Saudi migrants, as per a report published in the magazine Der Spiegel.
Taking to X in August, Abdulmohsen asked, “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.”
Citing security sources, Die Welt daily reported that German state and federal police conducted a “risk assessment” on Abdulmohsen last year, declaring that Abdulmohsen posed “no specific danger”.
