By Thomas Escritt and Rachel Extra
MAGDEBURG, Germany (Reuters) -German authorities are investigating a Saudi man with a historical past of anti-Islam rhetoric because the suspected driver in a car-ramming assault at a Christmas market within the metropolis of Magdeburg which killed 5 individuals, officers mentioned on Saturday.
The Friday night assault on crowds of market guests gathered to rejoice the pre-Christmas season comes amid a fierce debate over safety and migration throughout an election marketing campaign in Germany, the place the far proper is polling strongly.
“What a terrible act it is to injure and kill so many people there with such brutality,” Chancellor Olaf Scholz mentioned within the central metropolis, a part of the previous East Germany, the place he laid a white rose at a church in honour of the victims.
“We have now learned that over 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 physician who has lived in Germany for nearly twenty years was arrested on the scene. Police searched his dwelling in a single day.
The motive remained unclear and police haven’t but named the suspect. He has been named in German media as Taleb A.
A spokesperson for a specialist rehabilitation clinic for criminals with addictions in Bernburg confirmed that the suspect had labored as a psychiatrist for them, however had not been at work since October on account of illness and vacation go away.
Posts on his X account, verified by Reuters, indicated help for anti-Islam and far-right events, together with the Various for Germany (AfD), in addition to criticism of Germany for its dealing with of Saudi refugees.
German Inside Minister Nancy Faeser mentioned the suspect’s Islamophobia was clear to see, however she declined to touch upon motive.
Taleb A. appeared in quite a lot of media interviews in 2019, together with with German newspaper FAZ and the BBC, by which he spoke of his work as an activist serving to Saudi Arabians and ex-Muslims flee to Europe.
“There is no good Islam,” he advised FAZ on the time.
A Saudi supply advised Reuters that Saudi Arabia had warned German authorities concerning the attacker after he posted extremist views on his private X account that threatened peace and safety.
These warnings got a number of occasions since he left Saudi Arabia in 2006, the supply mentioned, with out going into additional element.
A threat evaluation carried out final 12 months by German state and federal prison investigators got here to the conclusion that the person posed “no specific danger”, the Welt newspaper reported, citing safety sources.
Germany’s home and international intelligence businesses each declined to touch upon the continued investigation.
Andrea Reis, who had been on the market on Friday, returned on Saturday along with her daughter Julia to put a candle by the church overlooking the location. She mentioned that had it not been for a matter of moments, they might have been within the automotive’s path.
“I said, ‘let’s go and get a sausage’, but my daughter said ‘no let’s keep walking around’. If we’d stayed where we were we’d have been in the car’s path,” she mentioned.
Tears ran down her face as she described the scene. “Children screaming, crying for mama. You can’t forget that,” she mentioned.
Scholz’s Social Democrats are trailing each the far-right AfD and the frontrunner conservative opposition in opinion polls forward of snap elections set for Feb. 23.
The AfD, which enjoys notably robust help within the former East, has led requires a crackdown on migration to the nation.
Its chancellor candidate Alice Weidel and co-leader Tino Chrupalla issued an announcement on Saturday condemning the assault.
“The terrible attack on the Christmas market in Magdeburg in the middle of the peaceful pre-Christmas period has shaken us,” they mentioned.
