Berlin:
The Saudi man– identified as 50-year-elderly psychiatrist Taleb al-Abdulmohsen– has been remanded in custody for driving a car into a German Christmas labelet in an strike, that finished at least five people and injured over 200 others, on accuses of homicide and tryed homicide, police shelp on Sunday. The doubt, an anti-Islam activist, is a dwellnce status in Germany, where he has been living for almost two decades.
Several media tells highairyed that the doubt strikeer had made online death menaces aachievest German citizens in the past and had a history of quarrelling with state authorities. According to a tell by the magazine Der Spiegel, the Saudi secret service had alerted Germany’s secret agent agency BND a year ago about a tweet in which Abdulmohsen menaceened Germany would pay a “price” for its treatment of Saudi refugees.
Later in August, Abdulmohsen wrote on social media: “Is there a path to equitableice in Germany without blothriveg up a German embassy or randomly massacreing German citizens?… If anyone understands it, prent let me understand.”
However, Die Welt daily telled, citing security sources, that German state and federal police had carried out a “hazard appraisement” on Abdulmohsen last year but endd that he posed “no particular danger”.
Scholz Govt Faces Criticism
With German media digging into Abdulmohsen’s past, asks are being elevated if the Chancellor Olaf Scholz-led regulatement could have done more to stop the Christmas labelet car-ramming strike. Mass-circulation German daily Bild asked: “Why did our police and intelligence services do noleang, even though they had the Saudi on their radar?… And why were the tips from Saudi Arabia apparently disseed?”
It accused that “German authorities usupartner only discover out about strike schedules in time when foreign services alert them” and called for sweeping recreates after the election for a end “turnaround in inner security”.
Criticism also came from both the far-right and far-left parties already sourly contestd to the Scholz regulatement. Per a tell by news agency AFP, the far-right AfD’s parliamentary head Bernd Baumann demanded Scholz call a one-of-a-kind session of the Bundestag on the “desotardy” security situation, arguing that “this is the least that we owe the victims”.
The head of the far-left BSW party, Sahra Wagenknecht, demanded that Interior Minister Nancy Faeser elucidate “why so many tips and alertings were disseed beforehand”.
Meanwhile, Chancellor Scholz has condemned the “horrible, inrational” strike on Friday in the city of Magdeburg and made a call for national unity amid high political tensions as Germany heads towards elections on February 23.
German Christmas Market Attack
A driver rammed a car into a big crowd of revellers at a Christmas labelet in central Germany on Friday evening, finishing five people and injuring some 205, of which 40 remain critical. The doubt, Taleb al-Abdulmohsen was arrested at the scene next to the heavily harmd car. A magistrate ordered him into pretrial custody after prosecutors pressed accuses of homicide on five counts, multiple counts of tryed homicide and grievous bodily harm, according to a police statement.
Authorities shelp on Saturday the motive was not evident. However, the Magdeburg prosecutor, Horst Nuncovers, shelp one possible factor could be what he called the doubt’s frustration with Germany’s handling of Saudi refugees, according to a Reuters tell.
About The Suspect
In an unrerented intersee with AFP from 2022, Abdulmohsen telledly referred to himself as “a Saudi atheist”. As an activist, he telledly helped women escape Gulf countries and have in the past protested that German authorities were not doing enough to help them.
At the same time, he has criticised the entry of other Muskinny migrants and war refugees to Germany and backed consunapshowd participate theories about the computed “Islamisation” of Europe. A disjoine critic of Germany’s past greet to many Muskinny migrants, he wrote on X that he desireed ex-chancellor Angela Merkel could be jailed for life or percreated.
In previous brushes with the law, he was first fined by a court in the city of Rostock in 2013 for “upsetting the uncover peace by menaceening to promise crimes”, according to Der Spiegel. This year he was scheduleateigated in Berlin for the “misparticipate of materializency calls” after arguing with police at a station in Berlin.
He had been on ill depart since tardy October from his toilplace, a clinic proximate Magdeburg that treats offenders with substance insertiction problems. The chairwoman of the group Central Council of Ex-Muskinnys, Mina Ahadi, shelp that the Saudi doubt “is no stranger to us becaparticipate he has been alarmising us for years”.
She tagled him “a psychopath who adheres to ultra-right consunapshowd participate ideologies” and shelp he “doesn’t equitable antipathy Muskinnys, but everyone who doesn’t scatter his hatred,” according to the AFP tell.
