Berlin:
The Saudi man– identified as 50-year-old psychiatrist Taleb al-Abdulmohsen– has been remanded in custody for driving a car into a German Christmas market in an attack, that killed at least five people and injured over 200 others, on charges of murder and attempted murder, police said on Sunday. The suspect, an anti-Islam activist, is a residence status in Germany, where he has been living for almost two decades.
Several media reports highlighted that the suspect attacker had made online death threats against German citizens in the past and had a history of quarrelling with state authorities. According to a report by the magazine Der Spiegel, the Saudi secret service had warned Germany’s spy agency BND a year ago about a tweet in which Abdulmohsen threatened Germany would pay a “price” for its treatment of Saudi refugees.
Later in August, Abdulmohsen 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.”
However, Die Welt daily reported, citing security sources, that German state and federal police had carried out a “risk assessment” on Abdulmohsen last year but concluded that he posed “no specific danger”.
Scholz Govt Faces Criticism
With German media digging into Abdulmohsen’s past, questions are being raised if the Chancellor Olaf Scholz-led government could have done more to prevent the Christmas market car-ramming attack. Mass-circulation German daily Bild asked: “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?”
It charged that “German authorities usually only find out about attack plans in time when foreign services warn them” and called for sweeping reforms after the election for a complete “turnaround in internal security”.
Criticism also came from both the far-right and far-left parties already bitterly opposed to the Scholz government. Per a report by news agency AFP, the far-right AfD’s parliamentary head Bernd Baumann demanded Scholz call a special session of the Bundestag on the “desolate” security situation, arguing that “this is the least that we owe the victims”.
The head of the far-left BSW party, Sahra Wagenknecht, demanded that Interior Minister Nancy Faeser explain “why so many tips and warnings were ignored beforehand”.
Meanwhile, Chancellor Scholz has condemned the “terrible, insane” attack on Friday in the city of Magdeburg and made a call for national unity amid high political tensions as Germany heads towards elections on February 23.
German Christmas Market Attack
A driver rammed a car into a large crowd of revellers at a Christmas market in central Germany on Friday evening, killing five people and injuring some 205, of which 40 remain critical. The suspect, Taleb al-Abdulmohsen was arrested at the scene next to the heavily damaged car. A magistrate ordered him into pretrial custody after prosecutors pressed charges of murder on five counts, multiple counts of attempted murder and grievous bodily harm, according to a police statement.
Authorities said on Saturday the motive was not clear. However, the Magdeburg prosecutor, Horst Nopens, said one possible factor could be what he called the suspect’s frustration with Germany’s handling of Saudi refugees, according to a Reuters report.
About The Suspect
In an unpublished interview with AFP from 2022, Abdulmohsen reportedly referred to himself as “a Saudi atheist”. As an activist, he reportedly helped women flee Gulf countries and have in the past complained that German authorities were not doing enough to help them.
At the same time, he has criticised the entry of other Muslim migrants and war refugees to Germany and backed conspiracy theories about the planned “Islamisation” of Europe. A harsh critic of Germany’s past welcome to many Muslim migrants, he wrote on X that he wished ex-chancellor Angela Merkel could be jailed for life or executed.
In previous brushes with the law, he was first fined by a court in the city of Rostock in 2013 for “disturbing the public peace by threatening to commit crimes”, according to Der Spiegel. This year he was investigated in Berlin for the “misuse of emergency calls” after arguing with police at a station in Berlin.
He had been on sick leave since late October from his workplace, a clinic near Magdeburg that treats offenders with substance addiction problems. The chairwoman of the group Central Council of Ex-Muslims, Mina Ahadi, said that the Saudi suspect “is no stranger to us because he has been terrorising us for years”.
She labelled him “a psychopath who adheres to ultra-right conspiracy ideologies” and said he “doesn’t just hate Muslims, but everyone who doesn’t share his hatred,” according to the AFP report.