The man suspected of killing five people and seriously injuring dozens of others on Friday at the Magdeburg Christmas market was placed in pre-trial detention, German police announced on Sunday.
The German authorities are currently excluding the possibility of an Islamist attack due to the profile of the suspect who expressed his sympathies for the theses defended by the far-right party Alternativ für Deutschland (AfD). Aged 50, born in Saudi Arabia, identified under the first name and initial Taleb A. in the German press, he had lived across the Rhine for almost two decades and claimed to be an “apostate”.
The reasons why he threw his vehicle into the crowd remain unclear. The Magdeburg public prosecutor's office said the suspect may have wanted to react to what he said was poor treatment of Saudi refugees in Germany. Pending progress in the investigation, German justice ordered his placement in pre-trial detention and formally charged with “murder”, “attempted murder” and “serious assault”.
The five deceased victims are a nine-year-old boy and four women aged between 45 and 75. Among the dozens of victims mowed down by the black BMW he was driving, around forty were seriously injured. The attack committed on Friday in the capital of the Land of Saxony-Anhalt has reignited tensions on the immigration issue as the Germans prepare to return to the polls and the AfD is hot on the heels of the CDU conservatives while clearly distancing the social democrats of the SPD from the outgoing chancellor, Olaf Scholz.
On Saturday evening, a demonstration brought together around 2,100 far-right supporters in Magdeburg. A few incidents have been reported. Among the demonstrators, some brandished banners calling for “remigration”, an expression popular in certain circles of the European ultra-right which demands that the authorities expel more immigrants and individuals from non-European countries.
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