Police in Germany have mentioned a person suspected of killing at the very least 5 individuals and injuring a whole lot extra after a automobile was pushed at velocity by means of a crowded Christmas market faces prices of homicide and tried homicide.
The suspect, named by German media as Taleb al-Abdulmohsen, a 50-year-old psychiatrist from Saudi Arabia who arrived in Germany in 2006, was remanded in custody late on Saturday after the assault within the central city of Magdeburg on Friday night time.
Police mentioned on Sunday that prosecutors had pressed prices of homicide and tried homicide towards Abdulmohsen, an anti-Islam activist who has made dying threats on-line towards German residents and has a historical past of disputes with state authorities.
Whereas 1000’s mourned the victims, recognized as 4 ladies aged 52, 45, 75 and 67 and a nine-year-old boy, about 2,100 individuals attended a far-right rally billed as a “demonstration towards terror”, native media reported.
Protesters on the rally wore black balaclavas and have been filmed holding a big banner with the phrase “remigration”, a time period widespread with anti-immigration extremists looking for the mass deportation of migrants and folks deemed not ethnically German.
The federal government is going through rising questions on whether or not extra may have been executed to forestall the assault, which injured 205 individuals, 40 of whom have been in a vital situation.
Groups of surgeons have been working across the clock because the first survivors of the assault arrived, with one well being employee telling native media of “blood on the ground in all places, individuals screaming, a number of painkillers being administered”.
Abdulmohsen has described himself as a former Muslim and was an lively person of the social media platform X, sharing dozens of posts each day focusing primarily on anti-Islam themes, criticising the faith and congratulating Muslims who had left it.
He had helped ladies flee Gulf international locations, complained that Germany was not doing sufficient to assist them, and likewise accused German authorities of failing to do sufficient to fight what he known as the “Islamification of Europe”.
As not too long ago as August, Abdulmohsen additionally wrote on social media: “Is there a path to justice in Germany with out blowing up a German embassy or randomly slaughtering German residents? … If anybody is aware of it, please let me know.”
He additionally posted on X that he wished Germany’s former chancellor Angela Merkel may very well be jailed for all times or executed, and in 2013 he was fined by a courtroom within the metropolis of Rostock for “disturbing the general public peace by threatening to commit crimes”.
This 12 months he was investigated in Berlin for the “misuse of emergency calls” after arguing with officers at a police station, native media reported. He had been on sick go away from his office, an habit clinic close to Magdeburg, since late October.
Mina Ahadi, the chair of an affiliation of former Muslims in Germany, mentioned Abdulmohsen was “no stranger to us, as a result of he has been terrorising us for years”. She labelled him “a psychopath who adheres to ultra-right conspiracy ideologies”.
Der Spiegel journal cited safety sources as saying the Saudi secret service had alerted Germany’s spy company BND final 12 months to a publish during which Abdulmohsen threatened Germany would pay a value for its therapy of Saudi refugees.
Die Welt newspaper, citing safety sources, reported that German state and federal police had carried out a danger evaluation of Abdulmohsen which concluded that he posed “no particular hazard”.
The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, on Saturday condemned the “horrible, insane” assault and issued a name for nationwide unity amid mounting political stress within the nation because it heads in the direction of federal elections on 23 February.
Opposition events on the far proper and much left have been swift to criticise his authorities. The far-right AfD’s parliamentary chief, Bernd Baumann, demanded Scholz name a particular session of the Bundestag on the “desolate” safety scenario.
The top of the far-left BSW celebration, Sahra Wagenknecht, mentioned the inside minister, Nancy Faeser, should formally clarify “why so many suggestions and warnings have been ignored beforehand”.
The mass-circulation each day Bild demanded to know: “Why did our police and intelligence providers do nothing, although they’d the Saudi on their radar? … And why have been the guidelines from Saudi Arabia apparently ignored?”
Calling for sweeping reforms after the election and a whole “turnaround in inside safety”, the paper claimed: “German authorities normally solely discover out about assault plans in time when international providers warn them.”
Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, mentioned on Saturday there was “little doubt that there’s a hyperlink between the modified world in western Europe, the migration that flows there, particularly unlawful migration, and terrorist acts”.
Orbán vowed to “battle again” towards European migration insurance policies “as a result of Brussels desires Magdeburg to occur to Hungary, too”.
Reuters and Agence-France Presse contributed to this report
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