More information has emerged about the individual accused of killing five and injuring over 200 after he allegedly drove a car into a Christmas Market in Magdeburg, Germany on Friday.
The attack was allegedly perpetrated by a Saudi national named Taleb Al-Abdulmohsen who was associated with right-wing groups in Germany and espoused anti-immigrant and anti-Islam views. It was later revealed that the suspect had several run-ins with law enforcement after making violent threats.
The authorities described Abdulmohsen, 50, as an “untypical attacker” who did not align with radical Islamic extremism and instead advocated for more restrictions on immigration from Islamic countries, according to a BBC report.
After the attack, Alice Weidel, leader of the right-leaning Alternative for Germany Party (AfD) blamed the attack on immigration. “Magdeburg would not have been possible without uncontrolled immigration. The state must protect its citizens through a restrictive migration policy and consistent deportations!” she said.
The suspect was on law enforcement’s radar, showing a series of disturbing signs in the years before the incident, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Between 2011 and 2016, Abdulmohsen lived in Stralsund, in Germany’s northeast, where he studied medicine. In 2013, he clashed with the medical chamber in nearby Rostock concerning the recognition of qualifications earned outside Germany, Christian Pegel, state interior minister of Mecklenburg Vorpommern, told journalists on Sunday.
While on the phone with the chamber, “he threatened an act that, I quote, ‘people would remember and would attract international attention’,” Pegel said, adding that he had pointed to the 2013 Boston marathon bombing, an Islamist attack that had killed three people.
Police investigated Abdulmohsen as a result but concluded he wasn’t a threat because he didn’t show any sign of Islamist extremism, Pegel said. In late 2013, a court in Rostock fined him for disturbing the peace by threatening a crime.
The following year, he visited a local administration in Stralsund to request financial support and, when denied, warned an employee he would commit “an act that would draw international attention,” Pegel said. He also threatened to commit suicide. Given his existing conviction, he was interviewed by police, who warned him to stand down from future threats, Pegel said.
In 2015, he complained about his conviction in a letter to the state legal administration and in a call to the chancellery in Berlin, Pegel said. In his complaints, he insulted the judge who had pronounced his verdict, and threatened to acquire a gun, he said.
In an August 2023 post on X, Abdulmohsen asked his followers whether they “would blame me if I kill 20 Germans.”
Still, even with these incidents, the police did not act on the warning signs because the threat was unspecific.
Abdulmohsen was passionate in his opposition to Islam and immigration, many of his views lining up with AfD’s rhetoric. He reportedly clashed with a group of former Muslims trying to help others escape from their home countries because he viewed them as too far to the left and supportive of “Islamism.”
The attack has intensified divisions in German society with growing hostility toward journalists and fears about polarization. Migrants have expressed fears that they would be scapegoated for the attack. German citizens have become frustrated and concerned about the influx of unvetted migrants entering the country.
The tensions have created a powder keg situation in Germany as it has in other European nations as governments struggle to find solutions.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member