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Mourners laid flowers close to the scene of the lethal Christmas market assault on Monday, as investigators puzzled over the motive of the suspect and his earlier encounters with authorities have been scrutinised.
The Johanniskirche, a church a brief stroll from the scene of the assault, has grow to be a spot of mourning because the suspect drove a automobile into the busy market on Friday night, killing 5 individuals. A carpet of flowers now covers the broad pavement in entrance of the church.
The variety of injured has risen to as many as 235.
The suspect, recognized as Taleb al-Abdulmohsen by German media, is a 50-year-old psychiatrist from Saudi Arabia. He’s stated to have a historical past of anti-Islamic rhetoric and to have sympathy with the far-right Different for Germany (AfD) occasion.
He left video messages on his X (Twitter) account on the day of the assault.
In rambling commentary, he variously blamed Germany’s supposed liberalism for the dying of Socrates, an historical Greek thinker, and accused police of stealing a USB stick from him and destroying a felony grievance he had filed.
German newspaper Die Welt stated he had undergone psychological therapy.
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At a gathering organised by AfD outdoors Magdeburg’s cathedral on Monday, co-leader of the political occasion Alice Weidel described the assault as “an act of an Islamist filled with hatred for what constitutes human cohesion … for us Germans, for us Christians”.
AfD is polling in second place nationwide and is especially sturdy in japanese Germany, the place Magdeburg is positioned.
Holger Munch, president of the nation’s federal felony police workplace, advised the German broadcaster ZDF that Germany had been warned in regards to the suspect by Saudi Arabia way back to 2023, and that German authorities had investigated it however discovered it to be imprecise.
“The person additionally revealed an enormous variety of posts on the web. He additionally had varied contacts with the authorities, made insults and even threats. However he was not identified for acts of violence,” Mr Munch stated.
Federal inside minister Nancy Faeser known as for the adoption of harder inner safety legal guidelines, together with a brand new act to strengthen police forces, in addition to the introduction of biometric surveillance.
“It’s clear that we should do the whole lot to guard the individuals of Germany from such horrific acts of violence. To do that, our safety authorities want all the mandatory powers and extra personnel,” she advised information web site Der Spiegel.
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Vice-chancellor Robert Habeck voiced fears that the assault will gasoline on-line misinformation earlier than a snap nationwide election that’s anticipated to be held in late February. He urged individuals to not be “contaminated by hatred”.
“There’s nonetheless so much we don’t know, and so much is unexplained, together with the precise motive,” Mr Habeck stated. “All the identical, I worry that the mistrust that was instantly propagated on the web towards Muslims, foreigners and other people with a historical past of immigration will entrench itself deeper in society.”
Taha al-Hajji, a Saudi lawyer in exile and the authorized director of the Berlin-based European-Saudi Organisation for Human Rights, stated that the majority Saudi opposition activists in Germany didn’t have a superb relationship with the suspect.
“He made issues with everybody all the time … He was actually remoted,” stated Mr al-Hajji.
“He felt that he was the one one proper, and other people have been incorrect; he felt he was the centre of the whole lot, he was necessary. He all the time had issues with everybody.”
The native prosecutor in Magdeburg, Horst Nopens, stated on Sunday {that a} doable issue within the assault might have been the suspect’s “dissatisfaction with the therapy of Saudi refugees in Germany”, however added that the motive remained unclear.
Reuters and Related Press contributed to this report
