Who is the suspect in the Magdeburg market attack? What we know so far

On Friday night, a man drove his car into a crowd of shoppers at a Christmas market in the German city of Magdeburg.

The attack killed five people, including a nine-year-old boy, and left more than 200 injured, many of them in critical condition.

A judge has ordered the preventive detention of a 50-year-old man detained as a suspect in the attack.

Police believe he acted alone.

At 19:02 local time (18:02 GMT) the first call was made to the emergency services.

The caller reported that a car had plowed into a crowd at a downtown Christmas market.

The caller assumed it was an accident, police said, but it soon became clear that was not the case.

The driver, police said, had used the traffic light to veer off the road and into a crosswalk, which took him through a market entry point reserved for emergency vehicles, injuring several people along the way. .

Unverified images on social media showed the driver accelerating the vehicle across a pedestrian walkway between Christmas stalls.

Eyewitnesses described jumping out of the car’s path, running away or hiding.

Police said the driver then returned to the road where he had entered and was forced to stop in traffic. Officers already at the market were able to stop and arrest the driver here.

Footage showed armed police confronting and arresting a man who can be seen lying on the ground next to a stationary vehicle – a black BMW with significant damage to the front bumper and windshield.

The entire incident was over within three minutes, police said.

It is confirmed that a nine-year-old boy and four women died in the attack.

More than 200 people have been injured and at least 41 of them are in critical condition.

The figure had previously been reported as two dead and 68 injured, but was revised to much higher totals on Saturday morning.

None of the victims have been identified yet, but Magdeburg police said on Saturday night that they were 45, 52, 67 and 75 years old.

The suspect has been identified in local media as Taleb al-Abdulmohsen, the BBC understands.

He is a 50-year-old Saudi psychiatrist who lives in Bernburg, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) south of Magdeburg.

He is in custody on suspicion of five counts of murder, multiple attempted murders and dangerous bodily harm, police say.

The motive for the attack remains unclear, but authorities have reported that they believe he carried it out alone.

Al-Abdulmohsen arrived in Germany in 2006 and in 2016 was recognized as a refugee.

German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser told reporters it was “clear” the suspect holds “Islamophobic” views.

The suspect is an outspoken critic of Islam on social media and has promoted conspiracy theories about an alleged plot by German authorities to Islamize Europe.

Magdeburg Police Chief Tom-Oliver Langhans said police had previously conducted an assessment to determine whether the suspect could have posed a potential threat, “but that discussion was a year ago.”

One of those notices is believed to have come from Saudi Arabian authorities.

A source close to the Saudi government told the BBC that it sent four official notifications known as “Verbal Notes” to German authorities, warning them about what they said were al-Abdulmohsen’s “very extreme views.”

However, a counterterrorism expert told the BBC that the Saudis may have been mounting a disinformation campaign to discredit someone who tried to help young Saudis seek asylum in Germany.

The head of the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA), Holger Münch, told public broadcaster ZDF that his office had received a notification from Saudi Arabia in November 2023. He said local police had taken investigative measures. appropriate, but that the issue was not specific.

He added that the suspect “had various contacts with the authorities, insulted them and even threatened them, but was not known for violent acts.”

“The reports from Magdeburg raise the worst fears,” said German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on the social network X.

Magdeburg public order councilor Ronni Krug stated that the Christmas market will remain closed and that “Christmas in Magdeburg is over,” German public broadcaster MDR reported.

That sentiment was echoed on the market’s website, which after the attack showed only a black screen with words of mourning, announcing that the market had ended.

The Saudi government expressed “solidarity with the German people and the families of the victims,” ​​in a statement about X, and “affirmed its rejection of violence.”

British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said he was “horrified by the appalling attack in Magdeburg”, adding that his thoughts were with “the victims, their families and all those affected” in a post on X on Friday night.