The death toll has risen to four, according to several German media, after a man drove a vehicle into the crowd visiting the traditional market on Friday night. The German authorities arrested the driver, a Saudi doctor, who is being investigated as the author of an attack that has caused more than 60 injuries in this town in the center of the country. Among the deceased is a young child.
The detainee presents a completely atypical profile for this type of attacks. The German press has identified him as Taleb Al Abdulmohsen, a doctor born 50 years ago in Saudi Arabia and an ex-Muslim who with his organization helped persecuted women in the countries of the Persian Gulf, spread messages critical of his former religion and considered his country welcome, Germany, complicit with Islamism.
The man, who arrived in Germany in 2006 and lived and worked in the town of Bernburg, about 50 kilometers from Magdeburg, spread conspiratorial messages on social networks according to which Germany was working for the “Islamization of Europe” and was persecuting Saudi refugees. He also expressed sympathy for the far-right party Alternative for Germany and for Elon Musk, the magnate owner of the X network and ally of Donald Trump.
His profile on the social network X 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 services had alerted the German authorities about Taleb Al Abdulmohsen, reports the Reuters agency.
“I am the most aggressive critic of Islam in history,” the man declared in a 2019 interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper. 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.
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.
“The information coming from Magdeburg suggests the worst,” lamented the chancellor, Olaf Scholz, on Friday night in a message on the X network. “My thoughts are with the victims and their families.” Scholz and the Minister of the Interior, Nancy Faeser, will travel to Magdeburg this Saturday. “This is a horrible event, especially in the days before Christmas,” declared the president of the state of Saxony-Anhalt, Reiner Haseloff, on MDR public television.
