The suspect, who was taken into custody, is a 50-year-old psychiatrist from Saudi Arabia, who has a history of anti-Islamic rhetoric and has lived in Germany for almost twenty years. The motive for the attack was not specified.
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The perpetrator of the fatal car attack at the Magdeburg Christmas market has been officially charged.
The suspect was presented Saturday evening to a judge who, behind closed doors, ordered his continued detention pending possible indictment.
Early Sunday morning, Magdeburg police said in a statement that he was taken into custody for five counts of murderas well as for multiple counts of attempted murder and serious bodily harm.
Those killed were a nine-year-old boy and four women aged 52, 45, 75 and 67, according to the police statement. Among the injured, more than forty have serious or critical injuries.
Authorities said the suspected perpetrator used the open emergency exits to enter the Christmas market, where he gained speed and drove into the crowd, hitting more than 200 people. during an attack that lasted three minutes. He was immediately arrested on the spot at the crime scene.
It is a single author, according to the information available at the moment: nothing indicates that there is a second author, investigators said.
The investigation is still being carried out by the Saxony-Anhalt police. The federal prosecutor's office is still examining whether it will take over the investigation, the security services in Magdeburg said. The federal prosecutor's office can prosecute offenses relating to state protection if they are of so-called particular importance.
Police have not publicly released the suspect's name, but several German media outlets identified him as Taleb A., withholding his last name in accordance with privacy laws, and said he was specialist in psychiatry and psychotherapy.
The pattern carnage remains uncertain
As authorities investigate a possible motive, Magdeburg prosecutor Horst Nopens said Saturday that one possible factor could be what he called the suspect's frustration with the government's handling of Saudi refugees. 'Germany.
Describing himself as a former Muslim, the suspect appears to have been an active user of the social media platform have left.
The suspect had been a vocal critic of Islam in the past and gave a number of media interviews in 2019 to report on his work helping Saudis who had turned their backs on Islam and fled to Europe .
He also accused German authorities of not doing enough to combat what he called the “Islamization of Europe.” He also appears to have been a supporter of the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany party.
Finally, he had expressed on the social media platform X his support for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party and for American billionaire Elon Musk, who supported the AfD.
German authorities received a warning last year about the suspected perpetrator of a car attack at a Christmas market, a government office said on Sunday, as further details emerged about the five people killed in the 'attack.
“The Federal Office for Migration and Refugees said on Sunday X that it had taken this information seriously, like all the others it had received at the end of summer last year.
The Office clarified, however, that it was not an investigating authority and that it had transmitted the information to the competent authorities, in accordance with the procedure in force in such cases. He gave no further details about the suspect or the nature of the warnings.
Will the attack influence the elections?
The horror unleashed by a new act of mass violence in Germany makes it likely that immigration will remain a key issue as Germany heads towards snap elections on February 23.
The Christian Democrats, Germany's main opposition party, and the Free Democrats, who were part of the governing coalition until its collapse last month, have called for an improvement in Germany's security apparatus, including a better coordination between federal and state authorities.
“The context needs to be clarified. But above all, we must do more to prevent such offenses, especially since there were clearly specific warnings and advice in this case that were ignored,” said Sahra Wagenknecht, leader of the left-wing BSW party, to the Welt newspaper.
The BSW, a new political party with far-left roots, has also condemned uncontrolled immigration and gained considerable support ahead of the February 23 election.
Right-wing figures across Europe have criticized German authorities for allowing high levels of immigration in the past and for what they see as security failings today.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, known for his anti-migration positions for years, took advantage of the attack in Germany to attack the European Union's migration policies and called it a “terrorist act” .
At an annual press conference in Budapest on Saturday, Orbán insisted that “there is no doubt that there is a link between the world that has changed in Western Europe, the immigration that flows there, in particular illegal immigration, and terrorist acts.”
Mr Orbán promised to “retaliate” against EU migration policies “because Brussels wants Magdeburg to come to Hungary too”.
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