On the evening of Friday, December 20, a car rammed into people present at the Magdeburg Christmas market in Germany, causing two deaths including a child and more than 60 injuries. The motivations of the alleged perpetrator of the attack, a man of Saudi origin, remain unclear despite his arrest.
In the aftermath of the attack, the mystery remains unsolved in Germany. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is traveling this Saturday, December 21 to Magdeburg, a city devastated by a car-ramming attack on its Christmas market, the motivations of which remain unclear despite the arrest of the alleged perpetrator, of Saudi origin. Islamist trail? Psychological disorders suffered by the 50-year-old psychiatrist arrested at the scene? Another motivation?
« In the current state of the investigation it is not yet possible to categorize what happened on the Christmas market » Friday December 20 in the evening, indicated the local police. Olaf Scholz goes there in the morning with his Minister of the Interior to try to find out more and provide support to the local population traumatized by this attack which occurred in the middle of the electoral campaign.
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Eight years after Berlin
Around 7:00 p.m., a powerful car suddenly rushed through the aisles of the local Christmas market, mowing down onlookers one by one in its path over 400 meters. Still provisional assessment of this carnage: two dead, including a child, and more than 60 injured, around fifteen seriously.
« We saw the roof of the car, and then it happened. Everyone was then lying on the ground, children, men, injured people with open fractures, it's unimaginable. “, told a witness to the television channel Welt TV. “ It's terrible, there was a dead body next to me all this time. I thought I was just going to the Christmas market and such a thing happens. The world is sick », added his companion.
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The attack occurred eight years almost to the day after a similar act committed at a Berlin Christmas market, while Germany, in the middle of an electoral campaign, is on alert against the risk of attacks. For the authorities the date is not a coincidence and was chosen deliberately.
A profile that intrigues
But no one immediately drew the conclusion that it was, as in Berlin in 2016, an Islamist attack. Because the profile of the alleged perpetrator, presented in the German media as Taleb A., arrested aboard the ram car, is intriguing.
Living in Germany since 2006, a doctor practicing in the town of Bernburg, near Magdeburg and with refugee status, he was not at all known for his sympathies with the jihadist movement. On the contrary, his frequent positions on social networks paint the portrait of a man feeling persecuted, having broken with Islam and on the contrary denouncing the “ dangers » of an Islamization of Germany.
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Some media even attribute connections to the German far right. In any case, he was known in the community of Saudi immigrants in Germany and helped asylum seekers, particularly women. “ The motivations remain mysterious, an Islamist background seems excluded », Judges the weekly The mirror.
Recovery by the far right
The head of the Social Democratic Party, Dirk Wiese, warned on Saturday against any hasty conclusions. “ It seems that things are different here than initially assumed”he declared to the daily Rhenish Postemphasizing that the suspect's profile indicates him rather as a sympathizer of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party or of Elon Musk.
The German far right has nevertheless taken up this matter in the run-up to the early German legislative elections on February 23, where the question of immigration will play an important role, after several attacks committed in recent months by foreigners.
« When will this madness end? », Wrote on the X network the co-president of the AfD Alice Weidel, whose party is credited with second place in the polls, at almost 20%. The party places itself behind the conservatives, who are also calling for a tightening of the screws on the reception of refugees, but ahead of the social democrats of Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
Saudi Arabia's condemnation
Several capitals have expressed their “ choc “, like Rome, Madrid and Washington, the United States saying it is ready to ” provide help “. French President Emmanuel Macron and his new Prime Minister François Bayrou expressed France's “solidarity”.
Saudi Arabia, the suspect's country of origin, condemned the car-ramming attack and affirmed its ” rejection of violence “. The Gulf kingdom expressed “ its solidarity with the German people and the families of the victims », in a press release from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs broadcast on X.
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