A sixth person died following the attack perpetrated at the end of December in Germany on the Magdeburg Christmas market, according to a judicial source. A 52-year-old woman died of her injuries in hospital, the prosecutor’s office announced on Monday, two weeks after the car-ramming attack on December 20 in this city in the center of the country.
The perpetrator of the attack, a 50-year-old Saudi doctor, rushed into the crowd and injured 299 people, according to the authorities’ latest report, before being arrested himself by the police. Justice is still trying to clarify the motivations of the author, while ongoing investigations “do not yet give a clear picture” of his intentions, Interior Minister Nancy Faeser indicated at the end of December.
Very active on social networks, Taleb Jawad al-Abdulmohsen had multiplied worrying signals before the attack. It “does not fit into any previous pattern known” to the authorities, according to the minister. This man who arrived in Germany in 2006 was known for his opinions radically hostile to Islam, after having broken with his religion, and favorable to far-right conspiracy stories about an “Islamization” of Europe.
According to the court, the man could have acted to denounce the lack of support from the German authorities responsible for asylum to Saudi refugees.
The deadly attack has placed immigration and security at the heart of the campaign for the early legislative elections on February 23, with the opposition denouncing the lack of firmness of Olaf Scholz’s center-left coalition.
