German police said there were warnings about the Christmas market attacker

Police have not publicly named the suspect, but several German media outlets They identified him as Taleb A., omitting his last name in line with German privacy laws, and reported that he was a specialist in psychiatry and psychotherapy.

Authorities indicate that he does not fit the usual profile of perpetrators of extremist attacks. The man described himself as an ex-Muslim who was very critical of Islam and in many social media posts expressed his support for the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.

Attack on the German Christmas market: the warnings that were not heeded

He is detained while authorities investigate him. “This perpetrator acted in an incredibly cruel and brutal way, like an Islamist terrorist, although he was obviously ideologically an Islamophobe,” Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said on Sunday.

The suspect originally lived in the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, where he completed his specialized training in Stralsund and also came to the attention of authorities due to threatening criminal acts, the state’s Interior Minister Christian Pegel said on Sunday.

In a dispute over the recognition of exam results, he threatened members of the state medical association with an act that would attract international attention, triggering an investigation and a search of his home, the dpa news agency reported, citing Pegel. No evidence was found of actual preparations for an attack, but a court found him guilty in 2013 of threatening one.

The head of the Federal Criminal Police Office, Holger Munchsaid in an interview on German television channel ZDF on Saturday that his office received a warning from Saudi Arabia in November 2023, prompting authorities to launch “appropriate investigative measures.”

“The man also published a large number of posts on the internet. He also had contact with several authorities, made insults and even threats. However, he was not known to have committed any acts of violence,” said Münch, whose office is the German equivalent of the FBI. Despite this, he maintained that the warnings turned out to be very vague.

The Federal Office for Migration and Refugees also said it received a warning about the suspect at the end of last summer.

“This was taken seriously, like each of the numerous leads,” the office said Saturday in X. But it also noted that it is not an investigating authority and that it referred the information to the relevant authorities. He did not give more details.

The Central Council of Ex-Muslims said in a statement that the suspect had “terrorized” them for years and expressed shock at Friday night’s attack.

“He apparently shared beliefs with the far-right spectrum of the AfD and believed in a large-scale conspiracy aimed at Islamizing Germany. “His delusions went so far that he assumed that even organizations critical of Islam were part of the Islamist conspiracy,” the statement said.

What was the attack on the Magdeburg Christmas market like?

Police in Magdeburg — about 130 kilometers (80 miles) west of Berlin — said the victims were four women, ages 45, 52, 67 and 75, and a 9-year-old boy.

Authorities reported that 200 people were injured, including 41 in serious condition.

The suspect was brought before a judge Saturday night and ordered held in custody on charges of murder and attempted murder.

The horror unleashed by another act of mass violence in Germany makes it likely that migration will remain a key issue ahead of the early elections on February 23.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, known for his strong anti-immigration stance, used the attack in Germany to attack the European Union’s migration policies, describing it as a “terrorist act.”

Orban promised to “fight” against the EU’s migration policies “because Brussels wants what happened in Magdeburg to happen to Hungary too.”

Source: AP