German police arrested a Saudi Arabian man after a deadly car-ramming attack on a Christmas market Friday in which an SUV barrelled through a crowd of revellers at high speed, leaving a trail of bloody carnage.
At least two people were killed, one of them a young child, and 68 injured, said authorities in the city of Magdeburg, located about 130 kilometres (80 miles) southwest of Berlin.
The suspect was a 50-year-old medical doctor from Saudi Arabia living in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt, said regional premier Reiner Haseloff, speaking at a scene cordoned off and guarded by police commandos. "We have arrested the perpetrator, a man from Saudi Arabia, a doctor who has been in Germany since 2006," he told reporters, calling the attack a "catastrophe" for the city and the country. "From what we currently know he was a lone attacker so we don't think there is any further danger."
German media partially named the suspect as Taleb A. and said he was a doctor of psychiatry.
The black BMW barrelled through the crowd at high speed just after 7:00 pm local time (1800 GMT) when the market was filled with revellers.
Police said the vehicle drove "at least 400 metres across the Christmas market" leaving a trail of bloodied casualties, debris and broken glass at the city's central town hall square. Ambulances and fire engines rushed to the chaotic site, which was doused in blue police lights and wailing sirens, as badly injured people were treated on site and rushed off to hospitals.
German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier wrote that "the anticipation of a peaceful Christmas was suddenly interrupted" in the attack but he cautioned that "the background to the terrible deed has yet been clarified". 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?" The Saudi government expressed "solidarity with the German people and the families of the victims", in a statement on social media platform X, and "affirmed its rejection of violence". French President Emmanuel Macron said he was "profoundly shocked" by the attack and that he "shares the pain of the German people". Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni also condemned the "brutal attack on the defenceless crowd" and Spain's prime minister Pedro Sanchez voiced his sorrow at the "terrible attack".
Update 20241221-0
Magdeburg (Germany) (AFP) – German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and other politicians will Saturday visit the scene of a bloody car-ramming that targeted visitors to a Christmas fair in an old market city.
Police arrested a 50-year-old Saudi medical doctor at the site of the assault in which two people were killed and 68 injured when an SUV ploughed through the festive crowd in Magdeburg on Friday night. So far police were uncertain whether the attack may have been Islamist-inspired or linked to psychological problems.
"The motives remain mysterious," wrote the weekly Der Spiegel.
No extremist group has claimed the latest vehicle-ramming attack to target one of Germany's most beloved religious and cultural festivals.
Some German media pointed to the suspect's past social media posts in which he has expressed views critical of Islam and had even warned of the "dangers" of an Islamisation of Germany.
One woman summed up the stunned mood when she told Die Welt daily: "I don't know in what world we're living in, where someone would use such a peaceful event to spread terror."
"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," he said.
The local Volksstimme newspaper said reports from the scene indicated the attacker clearly tried "to hit as many people as possible".
Scholz and Interior Minister Nancy Faeser will on Saturday visit the market, where well-wishers had already left flowers of condolences. Regional premier Reiner Haseloff said he would discuss the "necessary measures" to be taken with Scholz: "We now need to work through this and draw long-term consequences."
Update 20241221-1
Magdeburg (Germany) (AFP) – German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Saturday visited the site of a car-ramming attack on a crowded Christmas market that killed five people and injured more than 200 as he called for unity while condemning the "terrible catastrophe".
A sombre Scholz, dressed in black, was joined by national and regional politicians in the eastern city of Magdeburg, where they laid flowers outside the main church. He pledged that Germany 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 as it heads towards 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" and added that "it is good to hear that we as Germans are not alone in the face of this terrible catastrophe".
Named by German media as Taleb A., he was a doctor who had lived in Germany since 2006 and held a permanent residence permit, working in a clinic near Magdeburg. He had long also worked as a rights activist who supported Saudi women and described himself as a "Saudi atheist". He had voiced strongly anti-Islam views, echoing the rhetoric of the far-right, according to his social media posts and past interviews. As his views expressed online grew more radical, he accused Germany's past governments of a plan to "Islamise Europe" and voiced fears he was being targeted by authorities. The Bild daily reported that an initial drug test had proved positive, after police officers on Friday used a test kit that can detect narcotics ranging from cannabis to cocaine and methamphetamines.
Update 20241221-2
Taleb Jawad al-Abdulmohsen had been living in Germany since 2006 and practised as a psychiatrist in the town of Bernburg, near Magdeburg. He had no known links to jihadists.
On social media, Abdulmohsen portrayed himself as a victim of persecution who had renounced Islam and decried what he said was the Islamisation of Germany. He came from a Shiite family in the village of Hofuf in the predominantly Shiite province of al-Ahsa, in the east of Saudi Arabia. He arrived in Germany in 2006 and was granted refugee status 10 years later, according to German media and a Saudi activist. Abdulmohsen lived and worked in the region of Saxony-Anhalt, whose capital Magdeburg is 130 kilometres (80 miles) west of Berlin.
In an interview with the German newspaper Frankfurter Rundschau several years ago, he said he had been threatened with death for apostasy. In an unpublished interview with AFP from 2022 for an unrelated story, Abdulmohsen presented himself as "a Saudi atheist", and said that young Saudis were not only fleeing the government but "are fleeing Islam". "Strict Islamic upbringing is the cause of all the problems of Muslims, especially women," he said.
Some media outlets have reported links between Abdulmohsen and the far-right in Germany. He was well-known in the Saudi diaspora in the country and helped asylum seekers, particularly women. "He is a psychologically disturbed person with an exaggerated sense of self-importance," Taha Al-Hajji, legal director of the Berlin-based European Saudi Organisation for Human Rights, told AFP. "This is definitely not an Islamist-motivated attack," he added. Hajji said Abdulmohsen was "a pariah" among the Saudi community in Germany, despite his work with asylum seekers.
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? I have been seeking a peaceful path since January 2019 and have not found it. If anyone knows it, please let me know." In the post, he condemned what he called "the crimes committed by Germany against Saudi refugees and the obstruction of justice, no matter how much evidence was presented to them".
https://www.rfi.fr/en/middle-east/20241221-the-atheist-saudi-refugee-suspected-of-germany-attack