Who is the German Christmas market attack suspect? A Saudi doctor and far-right supporter
Police arrested a 50-year-old man after a car was driven into a crowd of people at a busy Christmas market in Magdeburg on Friday night
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Police have arrested a 50-year-old man after a car ploughed into a busy outdoor Christmas market in Magdeburg on Friday evening, killing at least five people and injuring 200 others.
At least five people - including a nine-year-old boy and four women - were killed in the attack as the suspect is remanded in custody.
Footage showed the vehicle breaking through barriers before speeding 400 metres through the crammed “fairytale-like” Magdeburg market.
Here is everything we know about the suspect so far.
Who is the suspect?
The suspect is a 50-year-old doctor from Saudi Arabia, named by German media as Taleb al-Abdulmohsen. On Saturday evening, he was remanded into custody after appearing in court.
“The judge ordered pre-trial detention for five counts of murder, multiple attempted murder and multiple counts of dangerous bodily harm,” its statement said.
Authorities confirmed that he first came to Germany in 2006 and later gained refugee status in 2016.
Local media reported that he had shown support for the far-right Alternative for Germany party (AfD), with a Saudi source telling Reuters that the kingdom had warned German authorities about the attacker, who the source said had posted extremist views on his personal X account.
A German security source told the news agency that tips sent by the Saudi authorities in 2023 and 2024 had been passed on to the relevant authorities. Newspaper Die Welt cited security sources as saying that a risk assessment conducted by state and federal investigators concluded that the man posed “no specific danger”.
Interior minister Nancy Faeser told reporters on Saturday: “At this point, we can only say for sure that the perpetrator was evidently Islamophobic — we can confirm that. Everything else is a matter for further investigation and we have to wait.”
In the days since his arrest, an interview the suspect gave to the BBC in 2019 has resurfaced.
In the video, he is seen speaking about a website he designed to help former Muslims flee the Gulf region.
He worked as a psychiatric doctor in the nearby town of Bernburg, with his workplace issuing a statement describing their shock at the attack.
Posting on Instagram, the Salus-Fachklinikum Bernburg clinic said it was “shocked to learn that the alleged perpetrator worked as a specialist doctor in our enforcement in Bernburg”.
It added that the suspect had been employed there as a psychiatric specialist since March 2020, but he had not been working since October due to illness and holiday.
German public broadcaster MDR previously reported that police suspected there could be explosives in the suspect’s car, but police later confirmed none were found after closer inspection.
Follow our live coverage of the incident here
How many people have died?
At least five people were killed in the shocking incident, authorities confirmed. One of those killed was a nine-year-old child.
Authorities confirmed on Saturday that 200 people have been injured, including 40 very seriously.
German chancellor Olaf Scholz expressed concern about the condition of those injured. He told reporters: “Almost 40 are so seriously injured that we must be very worried about them.”
Mr Haseloff told reporters earlier that additional deaths could not be ruled out due to the number of people injured.