Death ride: Christmas market attack in Magdeburg – What we know

A car drove into the crowd at the Christmas market in Magdeburg. More and more is known about the suspect, but the motive is still unclear.

A car drove into a group of people at the Christmas market in the state capital of Saxony-Anhalt early on Friday evening. The car raced around 400 meters across the area, as “Bild” reports, citing police information. The number of deaths rose to five. Saxony-Anhalt’s Prime Minister, Reiner Haseloff (CDU), said that 200 people were injured, many of them seriously and severely. Haseloff spoke of an “inhumane attack”. The police were initially reluctant to answer the question of whether they viewed the crime as an attack. It was still being clarified, it was said. According to Haseloff, the driver was arrested and, according to official information, is being interrogated. The suspect, Taleb A., is a 50-year-old from Saudi Arabia who first came to Germany in 2006 . According to State Interior Minister Tamara Zieschang, the man lives in Bernburg and has a permanent residence permit. According to dpa information, A. applied for asylum in February 2016, which was decided on in July of the same year. At that time, the Saudi citizen received asylum as a politically persecuted person.A. worked as a specialist in psychiatry in Saxony-Anhalt. As a spokeswoman for the operating company Salus said upon request, he worked as a doctor in the penal system in Bernburg. He worked with addicted criminals and had been working at the facility since March 2020. According to information from the dpa, the Ministry of Health of Saxony-Anhalt requested the man’s personal file that night and handed it over to the investigating authorities.A. According to dpa information, he is known as an activist critical of Islam and describes himself as an ex-Muslim. He recently made some confusingly worded allegations against German authorities in social media and interviews. Among other things, he accused them of not doing enough to combat Islamism. The suspect was known to the Berlin judiciary. According to dpa information, there were proceedings by the Berlin public prosecutor’s office regarding A.’s misuse of emergency calls. The “Spiegel” reported first. Saudi Arabia had warned Germany about Taleb A., according to Saudi security circles. The kingdom requested his extradition, but Germany did not respond. The man comes from the city of Al-Hofuf in eastern Saudi Arabia. He was Shiite. Only about ten percent of the population in the predominantly Sunni country is Shiite. There are repeated reports of discrimination against Shiites in the country. The police currently have no information about accomplices. Evidence that a second, possibly relevant car was seen in the city center has not been confirmed. Haseloff also assumes that the perpetrator was a lone perpetrator and that there is no further danger. According to the police, searches are being carried out. A spokeswoman said in the morning that a search was underway in Bernburg.

The background to the incident or the perpetrator’s motive are unclear. It is unclear where the suspect is currently being held and when he will be brought before a judge. A post was published on an X account with the name of the alleged perpetrator around the time of the attack . It is unclear whether he published it himself, programmed it in advance or whether someone else had access to the account. The Federal Prosecutor General has not yet said whether he will take over the investigation. The question of how he was able to get to the Christmas market despite security measures remains open. Details of the searches are not known.