Germany investigates warnings about man who stormed into Christmas market

Questions arose on Sunday whether the deadly attack on a German Christmas market could have been prevented, after it emerged that several authorities across the country had received warnings and tips about the perpetrator.

Five people were killed, including a child, and around 200 others were injured when a man rushed through the busy Christmas market in the central city of Magdeburg on Friday evening.

The perpetrator, a 50-year-old doctor from Saudi Arabia, who has lived in Germany for almost twenty years and has a permanent residence permit, is in pre-trial detention on suspicion of murder, attempted murder and causing grievous bodily harm.

He used unobstructed escape routes to speed through the Christmas market, hitting people at high speed. Four women, ages 45, 52, 67 and 75, as well as a 9-year-old boy, were killed, authorities said.

Investigators say the suspect acted alone, but they were still trying to determine a motive.

Research in ‘full swing’, says Faeser

German Interior Ministry Nancy Faeser promised a speedy investigation and said “every stone” was being turned over.

“The investigation by the security authorities is in full swing,” she said in a statement.

Faeser acknowledged that based on the available information, the perpetrator “does not fit a previous pattern.”

The minister acknowledged that the man had come to the attention of law enforcement and government authorities in the past, adding that his past and what authorities knew about him and what they did with that information are under close investigation.

She said the perpetrator behaved like an “Islamist terrorist” even though he was “clearly ideologically an Islamophobe.”

What did the authorities know about him?

Two days after the attack, Germany was still in shock and mourning. But law enforcement agencies also faced questions about what they knew about the driver and whether the tragedy could have been prevented.

The head of the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA), Holger Münch, said his office had received a tip from Saudi Arabia in November 2023 that led officers to investigate the attacker – identified only as Taleb A in accordance with German privacy laws.

In an interview with public broadcaster ZDF, Münch said “appropriate investigative measures” had been taken, but that the warnings were not specific.

“He had also had several contacts with authorities, uttered insults and even threats. But he was not known for his violent acts,” Münch said of the doctor.

He said the BKA would investigate whether mistakes were made in the way the investigation was handled.

The Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) said it received information about Taleb A in late summer 2023.

BAMF said on X that it had received information about the man through its social media and that the tip was “taken seriously”. But the agency noted that since it cannot conduct a law enforcement investigation, it has referred the tipster to the responsible agency.

Screenshots are circulating online purporting to show messages addressed to BAMF from an individual who had warnings about Taleb A. The authenticity of these screenshots could not be verified by dpa.

The Sunday edition of the Welt newspaper reported on a woman who sent warnings about Taleb A to BAMF’s account on X at the end of 2023.

She had previously tried to warn Berlin police about the man, but her email did not arrive because she had accidentally sent it to police in a municipality called Berlin in the United States, the newspaper reported.

In trouble in different cities

Taleb A came to the attention of authorities in several cities over the past ten years.

He lived in the northeastern state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern from 2011 to early 2016.

In 2013, a court in the city of Rostock fined him for disturbing the peace. The interior minister of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern said the doctor had had a dispute with a medical association over the recognition of research results and threatened to commit an act that would attract international attention.

He was referring to the attack on the Boston Marathon. However, investigation found no evidence of any real preparation for an attack.

Taleb A was also on the radar of the Berlin judiciary. According to sources who spoke to dpa, the city’s public prosecutor’s office had filed charges against him for misuse of emergency calls.

Tom-Oliver Langhans, director of the Magdeburg police, said on Saturday that police in his city had also filed a criminal complaint against Taleb A in the past. This procedure dates back about a year and is now part of the assault investigation.

Magdeburg is a city with about 237,000 inhabitants in the state of Saxony-Anhalt, 130 kilometers west of Berlin.

Critical of Islam

Taleb A was known as an activist who was critical of Islam. He has made erratic accusations on social media and in interviews, claiming that German authorities are not doing enough to combat Islamism.

He was previously an advocate for Saudi women fleeing their country, but later advised against seeking asylum in Germany. He wrote on his website in English and Arabic: “My advice: do not apply for asylum in Germany.”

Just ten days ago, the American platform RAIR, which describes itself as an anti-Muslim grassroots organization, published an interview with the doctor.

In it, he accused German police of deliberately destroying the lives of Saudi asylum seekers who had renounced Islam. He also presented himself as a fan of X owner Elon Musk and the far-right Alternative for Germany, which he said had the same goals as him.

At the same time, however, he described himself as politically left-wing.

Warning from Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabian security sources said they had warned Germany about the suspected attacker and requested the suspect’s extradition, but Germany had not responded.

They said the man was a Shia Muslim from the town of Al-Hofuf in eastern Saudi Arabia. Shiites are a minority in the country, making up only about 10% of the Sunni majority country.

There have been repeated reports of discrimination against Shia Muslims in Saudi Arabia.

Taleb A arrived in Germany in 2006. Dpa has learned that he applied for asylum in February 2016 and was granted political refugee status in July of that year.

According to a spokeswoman for health company Salus, the suspect worked as a specialist in psychiatry at the forensic psychiatric department in Bernburg, a city south of Magdeburg.