Magdeburg: German police are investigating a Saudi critic of Islam because the creator of the Christmas market bloodbath | International | EUROtoday

The dying toll from a automotive accident at a German Christmas market within the metropolis of Magdeburg has risen from two to 5, authorities have confirmed, after a person drove a car into the group on Friday night time. I visited the normal market. The police arrested the driving force, a Saudi physician, who’s being investigated because the creator of an assault that has left 200 injured on this city within the heart of the nation. Among the deceased is a nine-year-old boy.

The detainee presents a totally atypical profile for this kind of assaults. The German press has recognized him as Taleb Al Abdulmohsen, a physician born 50 years in the past in Saudi Arabia and an ex-Muslim who together with his group helped persecuted ladies within the international locations of the Persian Gulf, unfold messages essential of his outdated faith and thought of his nation welcome, Germany, complicit with Islamism.

The man, who arrived in Germany in 2006 and lived and labored within the city of Bernburg, about 50 kilometers from Magdeburg, unfold conspiratorial messages on social networks in keeping with which Germany was working for the “Islamization of Europe” and was persecuting Saudi refugees. He additionally expressed sympathy for the far-right social gathering Alternative for Germany (AfD) and for Elon Musk, the tycoon proprietor of the X community and ally of Donald Trump.

“The balance is more horrible than yesterday. The death toll is now five and there are more than 200 injured, many of them serious and in critical condition,” said the president of Saxony-Anhalt, Rainer Haseloff, in Magdeburg.

The detainee’s social network X profile included a photo of an automatic weapon and a drawing of his face along with the following description: “Saudi military opposition. Germany persecutes Saudi women asylum seekers, inside and outside Germany, to destroy their lives. “Germany wants to destroy Europe.” The Saudi intelligence providers had alerted the German authorities about Taleb Al Abdulmohsen, experiences the Reuters company.

“I am the most aggressive critic of Islam in history,” the man declared in a 2019 interview with the newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. In another interview the same year with the BBC in 2019, the man presents himself as an “activist” who “helped people seeking asylum, especially from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf region.” The British network said that he had found asylum in Germany after seeing his life threatened in his native country. He claimed to spend between 10 and 16 hours a day, when he had time, helping asylum seekers. It said that 90% were women.

In 2019, Taleb Al Abdulmohsen stated in an interview with Frankfurter Rundschau who had requested asylum in Germany in 2016 because he had received death threats after turning away from Islam. He also expressed criticism and hostility on social media against Germany for its stance towards Islam. In November he published content on the X platform in which he criticized former German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s open borders policy, which he described as a plan to Islamize Europe.

He retweeted a photomontage by Salwan Momika – an anti-Islam activist, known for organizing public demonstrations in which he burns and desecrates the Koran – in which Merkel is seen carrying a sign that reads in English “I destroyed Europe.” And he wrote in another post on X: “Since there is no death penalty in Germany, Merkel must spend the rest of her life in prison for the secret criminal project to Islamize Europe. But if the death penalty is reinstated, she deserves to be killed.”

On the same afternoon of the attack, he had left an audio message in English: “Hello, my name is Taleb Al Abdulmohsen, I am a doctor, psychiatrist, I work in Germany. This story began a long time ago, at least 2,400 years ago, when the Athenians executed Socrates for his criticism of religion. And today, the cultural descendants of the ancient Greeks are Europe and North America. And currently in these countries the nation that actively and criminally persecutes critics of Islam to ruin their lives is the German nation. “That is why I consider the German nation responsible for the murder of Socrates.”

According to eyewitnesses cited by local newspaper Magdeburger VolkszeitungAt around 7:04 p.m. local time, the car rammed into the market, swerving for 400 meters to run over as many people as possible, until the police stopped it. “The images are horrible,” said Magdeburg city spokesman Michael Reif.

“It is a horrible act to hurt so many people with such brutality,” declared German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and recalled that people go to Christmas markets to enjoy themselves with their loved ones and drink a mulled wine (typical Christmas mulled wine) and eat a sausage. “It is important that what happened is clarified with complete precision,” he said about the investigations that are currently being carried out.

Scholz went to Magdeburg accompanied by the German Interior Minister, Nancy Faeser. Together with the president of the state of Saxony-Anhalt, Reiner Haseloff, they toured the Christmas market area where a car plowed into the crowd on Friday afternoon. Later they placed flowers on the stairs of the Johanniskirche church in tribute to the at least four dead and more than 200 injured.

The president expressed his condolences to the families of the victims and described the solidarity shown throughout the country as “deeply moving,” while recalling the importance of “staying united.” “That hate does not determine our coexistence and that we do not let those who want to sow hatred get away with it, but also that we act against the perpetrators with all the rigor of the law,” he noted.

There are nonetheless many inquiries to be clarified within the Magdeburg case, resembling what prompted Taleb Al Abdulmohsen, who was not labeled as an extremist by the authorities, to run over passers-by on the market. An Islamist background appears dominated out as a consequence of his profile. Another query that looms massive is the way it might have occurred. Since the assault in Berlin eight years in the past, safety measures have been carried out in Germany on the predominant Christmas markets and public occasions, resembling concrete blocks to stop the entry of autos. These blocks have been additionally on Magdeburg Square the place the tragedy occurred. Official circles communicate of an error within the safety idea of the Christmas market that allowed the automotive to entry the market.