Germans began mourning another violent attack on Saturday and their sense of security was shaken after a Saudi doctor drove a black BMW into a Christmas market crowded with shoppers on Friday evening.
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At least two people were killed and 60 others injured, 41 seriously, after a car plowed into crowds at a busy open-air Christmas market in the eastern town of Magdeburg. Germany,** in what authorities described asdeliberate attack.
The German daily BILD learned from a police source that the attacker — Taleb A. (50), doctor, originally from Saudi Arabia — would have been drugged. A first drug test (“drugwipe”) came back positive.
The two people confirmed dead are an adult and a toddler, but authorities said it was not possible to rule out other deaths as 15 people were seriously injured.
The driver was arrested at the scene shortly after the car sped into the market around 7 p.m. local time, when it was teeming with holiday shoppers.
Verified footage published by German news agency dpa shows the suspect's arrest on a footbridge in the middle of the road.
A nearby police officer pointing a handgun at the man yelled at him as he lay on his stomach. Other officers quickly arrived to take the man into custody.
The suspect is a 50-year-old Saudi doctor who settled in Germany in 2006, Tamara Zieschang, interior minister of the state of Saxony-Anhalt, said at a press conference.
He practiced medicine in Bernburg, about 40 kilometers south of Magdeburg.
“As things currently stand, this is a lone attackerso that as far as we know there is no further danger for the city,” Saxony-Anhalt Governor Reiner Haseloff told reporters.
“Each human life victim of this attack is a terrible tragedy and one human life too many.”
Saudi Arabia's Foreign Ministry condemned the attack on X, but did not mention the suspect's connection to the kingdom.
SATURDAY, it was still unclear what had pushed the man to rush into the crowd in the eastern German city of Magdeburg.
The violent incident shocked the city, bringing its mayor to the verge of tears and spoiling a festive event that is part of a centuries-old German tradition.
It also prompted several other German cities to cancel their weekend Christmas markets as a precaution and in solidarity with the loss suffered by Magdeburg.
The violence occurred in Magdeburg, a city of around 240,000 located west of Berlin and which serves as the capital of Saxony-Anhalt.
ADVERTISEMENTFriday evening's attack comes eight years afterIslamist extremist rams truck into crowded Berlin Christmas marketkilling 13 people and injuring many others. The bomber was killed a few days later in a shooting in Italy.
Christmas markets are an important part of German culture, an annual holiday tradition cherished since the Middle Ages and successfully exported to much of the Western world.
German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said late last month that there were no concrete indications of danger for Christmas markets this year, but that it was wise to 'be vigilant.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz posted on X: “My thoughts are with the victims and their loved ones. We stand with them and with the people of Magdeburg.”
ADVERTISEMENTThe President of the European Commission and the Secretary General of NATO also expressed their condolences on X.
“My thoughts today are with the victims of the brutal and cowardly attack in Magdeburg. This act of violence must be investigated and severely punished,” wrote the head of the European executive, Ursula von der Leyen.
“Horrible scenes at a Christmas market in Magdeburg“, wrote NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte. “NATO stands with Germany.”
Magdeburg Mayor Simone Borris said authorities planned to hold a commemoration in the city's cathedral on Saturday.
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