AA/Paris/Feïza Ben Mohamed
The Saudi doctor Taleb A., suspected of being the author of the car ramming attack which cost the lives of 5 people in Germany on Friday evening, was placed in detention, the police announced on the night of Saturday in Sunday.
“On the evening of December 21, 2024, the responsible judge ordered pre-trial detention. The accused was then taken to a correctional facility,” it was clarified in a publication on the social network X.
The police indicate that 5 people, including a 9-year-old child, in addition to 4 women aged 45, 52, 67 and 75, were killed in this attack perpetrated in the heart of the Magdeburg Christmas market.
On Saturday, local prosecutor Horst Walter Nopens indicated at a press conference that the attack “could have as a background dissatisfaction with the way in which refugees from Saudi Arabia are treated in Germany”.
According to the Minister of the Interior, Nancy Faeser, the suspect is “an Islamophobe” presenting himself as an “atheist”, who settled in Germany under refugee status in 2006 and who works as a psychiatrist.
German media were able to obtain screenshots of the suspect's messages before his X account was suspended following the attack. In these images, he carries a rifle in his cover photo and accuses Germany of “wanting to Islamize Europe” and holds “the German nation responsible for the assassination of Socrates.”
In an X message posted in December 2023, the suspect accuses the German state of persecuting Saudi refugees and threatens: “I assure you that I will take revenge 100%. Even if it costs me my life,” before continuing: “Germany will have to pay for this. It’s a very high price.”
In his May post, the suspect also said: “I seriously expect to die this year. Reason: I will obtain justice at all costs. The German authorities are blocking all peaceful paths to justice.”
In a message in Arabic published around the same time, he also said: “I assure you that if Germany wants war, we will do it. If Germany wants to kill us, we will slaughter them, we will die or we will go to prison with pride. Because we have exhausted all peaceful means, we have been faced with new violations by the police, the police department, the prosecutor's office, the judiciary, the Ministry of the Interior. Peace is of no use to them.”
The German press also reported that the suspect had posted messages on social media insulting to Christians and Muslims, that he had praised the Israeli genocide and other attacks in Gaza, and that he had not been returned to Saudi Arabia despite an extradition request.
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