Authorities investigate Saudi doctor as suspect in Germany Christmas market attack

Authorities investigated a Saudi doctor with a history of anti-Islam rhetoric as the suspected driver in a car-ramming attack on a Christmas market in the German city of Magdeburg that killed five people and injured scores.

The Friday evening attack on crowds gathered to celebrate the Christmas season could sharpen a fierce debate in Germany over security and immigration ahead of a national election in February, with opinion polls suggesting the far right will perform strongly.

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.

The suspect, a 50-year-old psychiatrist who has lived in Germany for almost two decades, was arrested at the scene following the three-minute attack in the central city that shocked the country. Police did not name the suspect, identified by German media only as Taleb A.

The driver used emergency exit points to slowly navigate the vehicle towards the market, before picking up speed and ploughing into the crowd, a city police official told reporters.

Those killed were a nine-year-old child and four adults, Magdeburg city official Ronni Krug said, adding that some 41 of the injured had either serious or critical injuries.

"I don't know about you, but I associate the Christmas market with mulled wine and bratwurst, and yesterday people died in this area. Others are fighting for their lives," Krug said.

Authorities closed the market for the remainder of the season.

"What a terrible act it is to injure and kill so many people with such brutality," Chancellor Olaf Scholz said during a visit to the city, where he laid a white rose at a church.

ONLINE POSTS

Posts on the suspect's X account, verified by Reuters, suggested he supported anti-Islam and far-right parties, including the Alternative for Germany (AfD), and had criticised Germany for its handling of Saudi refugees.

German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said the suspect's Islamophobia was clear to see, but she declined to comment on the motive.

Friedrich Merz, leader of the opposition Christian Democrats and current favourite to succeed Scholz as chancellor, cautioned against drawing hasty conclusions.

"Yesterday's horrific act in Magdeburg does not fit the familiar pattern," he said.

Taleb A. appeared in a number of media interviews in 2019, including with German newspaper FAZ and the BBC, in which he spoke of his work as an activist helping Saudi Arabians and people who had turned away from Islam to flee to Europe.

"There is no good Islam," he told FAZ at the time.

A Saudi source told Reuters that Saudi Arabia had warned German authorities about the suspect after he posted extremist views on his X account that threatened peace and security.

A German security source said Saudi authorities had sent several tips in 2023 and 2024 and that these had been passed on to the relevant security authorities.

A risk assessment conducted last year by German state and federal criminal investigators came to the conclusion that the man posed "no specific danger", the Welt newspaper reported, citing security sources.

Germany's domestic and foreign intelligence agencies both declined to comment on the investigation. The state and federal criminal investigation offices did not respond to Reuters' request for comment.

'CHILDREN SCREAMING'

Andrea Reis was at the market on Friday and returned on Saturday with her daughter Julia to lay a candle by the church overlooking the site, and said she had narrowly escaped being in the path of the car.

Tears ran down her face as she described the scene. "Children screaming, crying for mama. You can't forget that," she said.

Scholz's Social Democrats are trailing both the far-right AfD and the frontrunner conservative opposition in opinion polls before snap elections set for Feb. 23.

The AfD, which enjoys particularly strong support in the former East, has led calls for a crackdown on immigration.

Its chancellor candidate, Alice Weidel, and co-leader Tino Chrupalla issued a statement condemning the attack.