Death toll in German Christmas market attack rises to five, police investigate Saudi suspect By Reuters

By Thomas Escritt and Rachel More

MAGDEBURG, Germany (Reuters) – German authorities are investigating a Saudi man with a history of anti-Islamic rhetoric as the alleged driver of a car attack at a Christmas market in the city of Magdeburg that killed five people, officials said on Thursday. Saturday. .

The Friday night attack on a crowd of market visitors gathered to celebrate the pre-Christmas season comes amid a fierce debate over security and migration during an election campaign in Germany, where the far-right is gaining strongly in the elections. surveys.

“What a terrible act it is to hurt and kill so many people there with such brutality,” Chancellor Olaf Scholz said in the central city, part of the former East Germany, where he laid a white rose at a church in honor of the victims. .

“We now know that more than 200 people have been injured,” he added. “Almost 40 are so seriously injured that we must be very worried about them.”

A 50-year-old Saudi doctor who has lived in Germany for almost two decades was arrested at the scene. Police searched his house overnight.

The motive is still unclear and police have not yet identified the suspect. He has been named in German media as Taleb A.

A spokesman for a specialized rehabilitation clinic for offenders with addictions in Bernburg confirmed that the suspect had worked as a psychiatrist for them, but had not returned to work since October due to illness and vacation.

Posts on his X account, verified by Reuters, indicated support for anti-Islam and far-right parties, including the Alternative for Germany (AfD), as well as criticism of Germany for its handling of Saudi refugees.

German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said the suspect’s Islamophobia was evident, but declined to comment on the motive.

Taleb A. appeared in several media interviews in 2019, including with German newspaper FAZ and the BBC, in which he discussed his work as an activist helping Saudis and former Muslims flee to Europe.

“There is no good Islam,” he then told FAZ.

A Saudi source told Reuters that Saudi Arabia had warned German authorities about the attacker after he posted extremist views on his personal X account that threatened peace and security.

These warnings have been given several times since he left Saudi Arabia in 2006, the source said, without going into further details.

A risk assessment conducted last year by German federal and state criminal investigators concluded that the man did not pose “any specific danger,” Welt newspaper reported, citing security sources.

Germany’s domestic and foreign intelligence agencies declined to comment on the ongoing investigation.

Andrea Reis, who had been at the market on Friday, returned on Saturday with her daughter Julia to place a candle next to the church that overlooks the place. She said if it hadn’t been for a few moments, they may have been in the path of the car.

“I said ‘let’s go get a sausage,’ but my daughter said ‘no, let’s keep walking.’ If we had stayed where we were, we would have been in the path of the car,” he said.

Tears streamed down her face as she described the scene. “Kids screaming, crying for mom. You can’t forget that,” he said.

Scholz’s Social Democrats are trailing both the far-right AfD and the conservative opposition in opinion polls ahead of snap elections scheduled for February 23.

The AfD, which enjoys particularly strong support in the former East, has led calls to crack down on migration to the country.

His chancellor candidate Alice Weidel and her co-leader Tino Chrupalla issued a statement on Saturday condemning the attack.

“The terrible attack at the Magdeburg Christmas market, in the middle of the peaceful season before Christmas, has shocked us,” they stated.