Nearly forty-eight hours after the deadly car-ramming attack on the Magdeburg Christmas market which left five people dead and 200 injured, political pressure is increasing on the German government. The latter promised an investigation to clarify possible errors by the authorities in preventing the attack on Sunday December 22.
“The investigating authorities will clarify all aspects of the case”which will include “a careful examination of existing clues in the past and how they were tracked”declared the Minister of the Interior, Nancy Faeser, to the Sunday newspaper Picture on Sunday. The Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) is supporting the investigations of the authorities of Saxony-Anhalt, the state in eastern Germany of which Magdeburg is the capital, the minister said. Investigations by security authorities “are carried out at a sustained pace” et “every stone will be lifted”she added, in a press release.
A sign of the pressure on the government of social democrat Olaf Scholz, two months before early elections which will be held on February 23, 2025: Mme Faeser will be heard from December 30 on the malfunctions that may have led to the attack. She will be questioned, along with several senior officials, by the parliamentary control committee and the internal affairs committee of the Bundestag (lower house of Parliament), Agence France-Presse (AFP) learned from a parliamentary source.
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Numerous threats from the suspect
The Social Democratic Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, who visited the site on Saturday alongside Mme Faeser, called on the Germans to “stick together”. But the Magdeburg attack fuels criticism in the middle of the electoral campaign. Since Friday evening, questions have arisen about the motives which pushed the suspect, a 50-year-old Saudi doctor, to commit the attack which killed five people and injured more than 200 others, and about possible faults of alert despite the worrying signals that the alleged attacker had been sending for years.
Presented to a judge on Saturday evening, he was placed in pre-trial detention. According to the magazine The mirrorthe Saudi secret services had sent a year ago a warning to their German correspondents from the Federal Intelligence Service (BND) about Taleb A. In question: one of his tweets, in which he threatened Germany with 'A « prix » to pay for its treatment of Saudi refugees. The warning went unheeded, while the man locked himself in conspiratorial speeches, accusing Germany of not protecting Saudis fleeing rigorist Islam while welcoming radical Muslims.
Last August, he wrote again on his X account: “Is there a path to justice in Germany without blowing up a German embassy or randomly slitting the throats of German citizens?” I have been looking for this peaceful path since January 2019 and I have not found it. »
In 2013, he was fined in Rostock for “public order disturbances” et “threats to commit crimes”. Even in the Saudi community exiled in Germany, the man frightened: Mina Ahadi, president of the Central Council of Former Muslims, described him as a “ultra-right conspiracy theorist psychopath” hating everyone who didn't share his hatred.
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German police, after an assessment “of risk” last year, judged that he did not present “particular danger”reports The worldSunday. The day before the attack, the Saudi psychiatrist ignored a court summons to Berlin, where he was being prosecuted for a scandal in a police station refusing to register his complaint, according to German media.
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Tributes
“The incompetence of the administration, which allowed the horror of Magdeburg, leaves us speechless”criticized Alice Weidel, the leader of the German far right, given strong progress two months before the legislative elections. Same speech from the other anti-system party, radical left this time, BSW, whose leader, Sahra Wagenknecht, demands explanations after a “so many warnings were ignored”.
Throughout the weekend, German politicians marched to the scene of the tragedy in Magdeburg, where four women, aged 45 to 75, and a 9-year-old boy were killed in Friday's attack. The alleged perpetrator, boarding a powerful BMW vehicle, mowed down the crowd while speeding through the Christmas market. The toll could rise further, as around forty people are seriously injured.
The French Minister Delegate for Europe, Benjamin Haddad, goes to Magdeburg on Sunday afternoon “to express France’s support for the German people”.
