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German authorities said they received tips last year about the suspect in a car attack on a Christmas market in Magdeburg when more details emerged on Sunday about the five murdered people.
Authorities have identified the suspect as a Saudi doctor who arrived in Germany in 2006 and had been granted permanent residency. Police have not named the suspect publicly, in accordance with privacy rules, but some German news outlets have identified him as Taleb A. and reported that he was a specialist in psychiatry and psychotherapy.
Authorities say he does not fit the usual profile of perpetrators of extremist attacks. He described himself as an ex-Muslim who was very critical of Islam and expressed support for the far-right anti-immigrant party Alternative for Germany (AfD) in many posts on social media.
He is being held as authorities investigate him.
The head of the Federal Criminal Police Office, Holger Münch, said in an interview on German broadcaster ZDF on Saturday that his office received a tipoff from Saudi Arabia in November 2023, which led the authorities to “appropriate investigative measures.”
“The man also published a large number of messages on the Internet. He also contacted various authorities, made insults and even threats. However, he was not known to have committed acts of violence,” said Münch, whose office is the German equivalent of the FBI.
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However, he said the warnings appeared to be very unspecific.
The Federal Office for Migration and Refugees also said on Saturday on X that it received a tip-off about the suspect in the late summer of last year.
“This was taken seriously, as were all the other numerous tips,” the office said. But it also noted that it is not an investigating authority and that it referred the information to the responsible authorities. It gave no other details.
The Central Council of Ex-Muslims said in a statement that the suspect had “terrorized” them for years as it expressed shock at the attack.
“He apparently shared beliefs from the far-right spectrum of the AfD and believed in a large-scale conspiracy aimed at Islamizing Germany. His delusions went so far that he assumed that even organizations critical of Islamism were part of ‘ e Islamist conspiracy,” the statement said.
The group’s president, Mina Ahadi, said in the same statement: “At first we suspected that he might be a mole in the Islamist movement. But now I think he is a psychopath who adheres to ultra- right-wing conspiracy ideologies.
Police in Magdeburg, the capital of the state of Saxony-Anhalt, said on Sunday that the dead were four women aged 45, 52, 67 and 75, as well as a 9-year-old boy.
Authorities said 200 people were injured, including 41 in serious condition. They were treated in multiple hospitals in Magdeburg, which is about 130 kilometers (80 miles) west of Berlin, and further afield.
The suspect was brought before the judge on Saturday evening, who had him detained behind closed doors on charges of murder and attempted murder. He faces possible charges.
The horror caused by yet another act of mass violence in Germany makes it likely that migration will remain a major issue as the country moves towards an early election on February 23. A deadly knife attack in Solingen in August pushed the issue to the top of the agenda, and led Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government to tighten border security measures.
Right-wing figures from across Europe have criticized German authorities for allowing high levels of migration in the past and for what they see as security failures now.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who is known for a strong anti-migration stance going back years, used the attack in Germany to criticize the European Union’s migration policy and described it as a “terrorist act”.
At an annual press conference in Budapest on Saturday, Orbán insisted that “there is no doubt that there is a link between the changed world in Western Europe, the migration that flows there, especially illegal migration and terrorist acts.”
Orbán vowed to “fight back” against EU migration policy and claimed without evidence that “Brussels wants Magdeburg to happen to Hungary as well.”
& copy 2024 The Canadian Press
