Police in Germany have stated a person suspected of killing at the least 5 individuals and injuring tons of extra after a automobile was pushed at pace by a crowded Christmas market faces fees of homicide and tried homicide.
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 assault within the central city of Magdeburg on Friday evening.
Police stated on Sunday that prosecutors had pressed fees of homicide and tried homicide towards Abdulmohsen, an anti-Islam activist who has made demise threats on-line towards German residents and has a historical past of disputes with state authorities.
Whereas 1000’s mourned the victims, recognized as 4 girls aged 52, 45, 75 and 67 and a nine-year-old boy, about 2,100 individuals attended a far-right rally billed as a “demonstration against terror”, native media reported.
Protesters on the rally wore black balaclavas and had been filmed holding a big banner with the phrase “remigration”, a time period fashionable with anti-immigration extremists in search of the mass deportation of migrants and folks deemed not ethnically German.
The federal government is dealing with rising questions on whether or not extra might have been achieved to forestall the assault, which injured 205 individuals, 40 of whom had been in a essential situation.
Groups of surgeons have been working across the clock for the reason that first survivors of the assault arrived, with one well being employee telling native media of “blood on the floor everywhere, people screaming, lots of painkillers being administered”.
Abdulmohsen has described himself as a former Muslim and was an lively consumer of the social media platform X, sharing dozens of posts every day focusing primarily on anti-Islam themes, criticising the faith and congratulating Muslims who had left it.
He had helped girls flee Gulf international locations, complained that Germany was not doing sufficient to assist them, and in addition accused German authorities of failing to do sufficient to fight what he known as the “Islamification of Europe”.
As just lately as August, Abdulmohsen additionally 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 additionally posted on X that he wished Germany’s former chancellor Angela Merkel may very well be jailed for all times or executed, and in 2013 he was fined by a courtroom within the metropolis of Rostock for “disturbing the public peace by threatening to commit crimes”.
This yr he was investigated in Berlin for the “misuse of emergency calls” after arguing with officers at a police station, native media reported. He had been on sick depart from his office, an dependancy clinic close to Magdeburg, since late October.
Mina Ahadi, the chair of an affiliation of former Muslims in Germany, stated 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 journal cited safety sources as saying the Saudi secret service had alerted Germany’s spy company BND final yr to a publish through which Abdulmohsen threatened Germany would pay a worth for its therapy of Saudi refugees.
Die Welt newspaper, citing safety sources, reported that German state and federal police had carried out a threat evaluation of Abdulmohsen which concluded that he posed “no specific danger”.
The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, on Saturday condemned the “terrible, insane” assault and issued a name for nationwide unity amid mounting political rigidity within the nation because it heads in direction of federal elections on 23 February.
Opposition events on the far proper and much left had been swift to criticise his authorities. The far-right AfD’s parliamentary chief, Bernd Baumann, demanded Scholz name a particular session of the Bundestag on the “desolate” safety state of affairs.
The top of the far-left BSW social gathering, Sahra Wagenknecht, stated the inside minister, Nancy Faeser, should formally clarify “why so many tips and warnings were ignored beforehand”.
The mass-circulation every day 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 an entire “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 Orbán, stated 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”.
Orbán vowed to “fight back” towards European migration insurance policies “because Brussels wants Magdeburg to happen to Hungary, too”.
Reuters and Agence-France Presse contributed to this report
