“ Drove into a crowd at a Christmas market in Germany: what is known about the suspect in the attack In Magdeburg, a BMW car drove into a crowd at a Christmas market, 5 people were killed and more than 200 injured. The attacker is a 50-year-old doctor from Saudi Arabia, who had previously made threats on social networks.”, — write on: unn.ua
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A 50-year-old doctor is in police custody after a black BMW SUV sped for 400 meters through a crowded market, running over several people and throwing others into the air. Among the dead is a nine-year-old girl.
41 people are in critical condition with life-threatening injuries, and the wounded are being treated in 15 clinics across the country.
Taleb Al Abdul Mohsen, who came to Germany in 2006 and applied for asylum a decade later, was detained by police just minutes after the attack. Forensic investigators are investigating the possibility that Abdul Mohsen deliberately disabled the emergency braking mechanism on the BMW X3 he had rented before the attack to maximize the impact.
A Ukrainian woman was injured during the attack on the Christmas market in Magdeburg – MFADecember 21 2024, 18:48 • 19581 views
At a press conference held by police and prosecutors on Saturday night, officials said the initial questioning of Abdul Mohsen, who is charged with five murders and 200 counts of attempted murder, had taken place, but declined to say what the suspect said. However, when asked about his motives, the chief public prosecutor Horst Walter Nopens said: “Maybe he was unhappy with the way refugees from Saudi Arabia are treated in Magdeburg.”
Nopence said the attacker bypassed security posts and used an emergency vehicle corridor to enter the market, which was supposed to be blocked off to all but ambulances and police. Asked whether the attacker could have been stopped, Nopence added: “There was no criminal in our line of sight.”
Among the numerous threats of violence that Abdul Mohsen, a self-proclaimed critic of Islam and defender of Saudi women, allegedly made on social media was a desire to kill former Chancellor Angela Merkel over her attempts to “Islamize Europe” by allowing large numbers of refugees into the country in 2015.
He accused the German authorities of trying to censor him. According to him, after the official announcement of the rejection of the Muslim faith, he found himself isolated from friends and family. Patients – often asylum seekers – at the clinic 15 km south of Magdeburg, where he worked as a consultant psychiatrist and psychotherapist, accused him of being a “bad person”.
Saudi authorities told German media that they had repeatedly warned German authorities that he posed a threat. It is unclear whether any action was taken on these warnings.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who visited the site of the attack on Saturday, called the attack “terrible and crazy.” Placing a white rose at the market, on the path between the wooden counters where the BMW crashed, Scholz said the choice of a Christmas market to attack was particularly shocking, as was the timing. He mentioned “almost 40” victims who were injured “so seriously that we have to be very concerned about them”.
As noted, Taleb Al Abdul Mohsen created a website that helps opponents of the regime in Saudi Arabia, in particular women, to flee the country and ask for asylum in Europe.
He has gone to great lengths to be taken seriously as a militant critic of Islam, calling himself “the most aggressive critic of Islam in history” in an interview published in 2019 in the authoritative Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
He has also shown strong support for the Alternative for Germany (AfD), an anti-Islam and anti-immigrant party that is currently second in the polls.
In recent months, his focus appears to have shifted to criticizing the German authorities and what he sees as their biased treatment of Saudis like himself and, in particular, of women asylum seekers who have renounced Islam.
In August, in one of the posts, he wrote: “If Germany wants to kill us, we will deal with them, die or go to prison with pride.”
Across Germany, security measures have been tightened again at thousands of Christmas markets. Some markets were closed for security reasons.
In Germany, a car drove into a crowd at a Christmas market, there are victimsDecember 20 2024, 19:14 • 21311 views