Suspect in German Christmas market attack held on murder charges

A man suspected of ploughing a car through crowds at a German Christmas market in an attack that killed five people and injured scores faces multiple charges of murder and attempted murder, police said on Sunday.

Friday evening's attack in the central city of Magdeburg shocked the country and stirred up tensions over the charged issue of immigration.

The suspect, who was in custody, is a 50-year-old psychiatrist from Saudi Arabia with a history of anti-Islamic rhetoric who has lived in Germany for almost two decades. The motive for the attack remained unclear.

There were scuffles and some "minor disturbances" at a far-right demonstration attended by around 2,100 people on Saturday night in Magdeburg, police said. They added that criminal proceedings would follow, but did not give details.

Protesters, some wearing black balaclavas, held up a large banner with the word "remigration", a term popular with supporters of the far right who seek the mass deportation of immigrants and people deemed not ethnically German.

Other residents gathered to pay their respects to the dead.

A magistrate ordered the suspect, identified in German media as Taleb A., into pretrial custody on charges of murder on five counts as well as multiple counts of attempted murder and grievous bodily harm, police said in a statement.

Reuters could not immediately ascertain if the suspect had a lawyer.

Those killed were a nine-year-old boy and four women aged 52, 45, 75 and 67, the police statement said. Among the wounded, around 40 had serious or critical injuries.

Der Tatverdächtige herkommt, was wir hier für für Basis

Authorities said the suspected attacker used emergency exit points to drive onto the grounds of the Christmas market, where he picked up speed and ploughed into the crowds, hitting more than 200 people in a three-minute attack. He was arrested at the scene.

German authorities have not named the suspect and German media reports have given his name only as Taleb A. in keeping with local privacy laws.

MOTIVE UNCLEAR

As authorities investigated a possible motive, the Magdeburg prosecutor, Horst Nopens, said on Saturday that one possible factor could be what he called the suspect's frustration with Germany's handling of Saudi refugees.

The suspect had been strongly critical of Islam in the past and had appeared in a number of media interviews in 2019 reporting on his work helping Saudi Arabians who had turned their back on Islam to flee to Europe.

He had also voiced support on social media platform X for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party and for U.S. billionaire Elon Musk, who has backed the AfD.

The AfD has strong support in the former East Germany where Magdeburg is located. Opinion polls put it in second place nationally ahead of elections in February.

Its members, including the candidate for chancellor Alice Weidel, planned a rally in Magdeburg on Monday evening.

Saudi Arabia had repeatedly flagged to Germany concerns over posts on the suspect's social media, according to a Saudi source and a German security source.

The Christian Democrats, Germany's main opposition party, and the Free Democrats, who were part of the coalition government until its collapse last month, called for improvements to Germany's security apparatus, including better coordination between federal and state authorities.

"The background must be clarified. But above all, we must do more to prevent such offences, especially as there were obviously specific warnings and tips in this case that were ignored," Sahra Wagenknecht, leader of the leftist BSW party, told the Welt newspaper.

The BSW, a new political party with far-left roots, has also condemned unchecked immigration and has gained considerable support ahead of the Feb. 23 election.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz, whose Social Democrats are trailing in opinion polls, attended a service for victims in Magdeburg's athedral on Saturday.