“Police arrested a driver who fatally ran over visitors to a Christmas market in Magdeburg, Germany. As a result of the tragedy, two people died, including a child, and at least 60 others were injured.”, — write: www.pravda.com.ua
Police arrested a driver who fatally ran over visitors to a Christmas market in Magdeburg, Germany. As a result of the tragedy, two people died, including a child, and at least 60 others were injured.
Source: the German television news service Tagesschau with reference to the head of the state government of Saxony-Anhalt Rainer Haseloff
Details: The suspect in the hit-and-run was arrested. According to Haseloff, this is a 50-year-old native of Saudi Arabia. The man came to Germany in 2006 and has a permanent residence permit in the country. He worked as a doctor in Bernburg.
Haseloff said it is suspected that the drive into the crowd was intentional.
According to preliminary data, the man was driving a rented black BMW. He drove “at least 400 meters along the Christmas market,” the police said.
“There is no longer a threat, we are talking about a lone criminal. There are very, very many wounded… at least 60, many seriously. Currently, two dead are an adult and a small child. We cannot rule out that the number of victims will increase… This is a disaster for the city of Magdeburg and for Germany,” Haseloff said.
Prehistory:
- In the evening of December 20, a car drove into a crowd of people who were at the Christmas market on the Alter Markt (“Old Market”) square in the center of the German city of Magdeburg.
- In recent years, terrorist attacks have occurred in Germany, during which attackers drove a car or van into a crowd of people – this often happened at Christmas markets, where many visitors gather.
- Almost exactly eight years ago, on December 19, 2016, an Islamist terrorist drove a stolen truck into the Christmas market on Breitscheidplatz in Berlin. Then 12 people died, and more than 70 were injured.