BERLIN – The German government faced increasing questions on December 22 about whether more could have been done to prevent this the car ram attack on the Christmas market that killed five people and injured more than 200.
The Saudi suspect, 50-year-old psychiatrist and anti-Islam activist Taleb al-Abdulmohsen, had made death threats against German citizens online and had a history of feuding with state authorities.
News magazine Der Spiegel said, citing security sources, that the Saudi secret service had warned the German spy agency BND a year ago about a tweet in which Abdulmohsen threatened that Germany would pay a “price” for the treatment of Saudi refugees.
And in August, Abdulmohsen wrote on social media: “Is there a path to justice in Germany without blowing up a German embassy or randomly slaughtering German citizens?… If anyone knows, please let me know.”
The daily Die Welt reported, also citing security sources, that German state and federal police had conducted a “risk assessment” on Abdulmohsen in 2023 but concluded that he posed “no specific danger.”
Chancellor Olaf Scholz has condemned the December 20 “terrible, insane” attack in the city of Magdeburg and appealed for national unity amid high political tensions as Germany heads towards the February 23 elections.
He said it was important “that we stay together, that we link arms, that it is not hatred that defines our coexistence, but the fact that we are a community seeking a common future.”
But as the German media delved into Abdulmohsen’s past and investigators revealed little, criticism poured in from the far-right and far-left parties that were already strongly opposed to the Scholz government.
Bernd Baumann, the head of parliament for the far-right AfD, demanded that Scholz convene a special session of the Bundestag on the “desolate” security situation, arguing that “this is the least we owe the victims”.
And the head of the far-left BSW party Sahra Wagenknecht demanded that Interior Minister Nancy Faeser explain “why so many tips and warnings were ignored in advance.”
‘Ultra-right conspiracy ideologies’
Emotions are running high and Magdeburg is in deep mourning over the massive massacre in which a nine-year-old child was among the dead and victims were treated in fifteen regional hospitals.
Of the 205 injured, about 40 were in critical condition as doctors fought to save their lives.
Surgeons have been working around the clock, with one health worker telling local media that “there is blood everywhere on the floor, people are screaming, a lot of painkillers are being administered”.
Police and prosecutors warned they were only at the beginning of their investigation into what led to the attack.
Abdulmohsen, who was arrested at the scene next to the badly damaged car, called himself “a Saudi atheist” in an unpublished 2022 interview with AFP.
As an activist, he helped women flee Gulf states and has complained in the past that German authorities were not doing enough to help them.
At the same time, he has criticized the arrival of other Muslim migrants and war refugees in Germany and supported conspiracy theories about the planned “Islamization” of Europe.
He was a sharp critic of Germany’s past and welcomed many Muslim migrants. He wrote on platform X that he wished former Chancellor Angela Merkel could receive a life sentence or be executed.
In previous run-ins with the law, he was first convicted and fined in 2013 by a court in the city of Rostock for “disturbing the public peace by threatening to commit crimes,” according to Der Spiegel.
In 2023, he was investigated in Berlin for “misuse of emergency calls” after an argument with police at a Berlin station.
He had been on sick leave from his workplace, a clinic near Magdeburg where offenders with substance addiction problems are treated, since the end of October.
Chairman of the Central Council of Ex-Muslims group Mina Ahadi said the Saudi suspect “is not a stranger to us, because he has been terrorizing us for years.”
She labeled him “a psychopath who espouses ultra-right conspiracy ideologies” and said he “hates not only Muslims, but anyone who does not share his hatred.” AFP
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