Emergency personnel work at a Christmas market after a automobile drove into a gaggle of individuals, in accordance with native media, in Magdeburg, Germany, December 20, 2024.
Axel Schmidt | Reuters
The suspect within the German car-ramming assault that killed five and injured more than 200 on Friday has been recognized as Taleb al-Abdulmohsen, a self-described member of the “liberal opposition” to Saudi Arabia who has voiced sturdy anti-Islamic and anti-immigration views.
Two senior U.S. officers aware of the matter recognized al-Abdulmohsen because the suspect.
The automobile allegedly pushed by al-Abdulmohsen plowed 1,200 ft right into a crowd in a slender alley in Magdeburg, a metropolis of about 240,000 folks west of Berlin, the place consumers had gathered Friday night time. The victims embody 4 adults and a 9-year-old youngster.
Al-Abdulmohsen, a health care provider from Saudi Arabia who lived in Germany, sought asylum in Germany in 2016, citing threats from Saudi Arabia, earlier than working at a clinic as a “specialist in psychiatry.” However his on-line exercise contains historic and up to date inflammatory content material on X, and he has been accused of erratic conduct by an NGO for refugees. He has aligned himself with far-right actions akin to Germany’s anti-immigration Different for Germany (AfD) get together, whereas praising figures like Dutch far-right chief Geert Wilders.
Police haven’t launched a motive within the Christmas market assault, however two senior U.S. officers instructed NBC Information authorities are investigating whether or not the incident is terrorism-related. As of now, German prosecutors have mentioned they’re planning to file murder and tried murder costs in addition to aggravated assault counts, the senior U.S. officers mentioned.
Al-Abdulmohsen’s bio on his X account, verified by NBC Information, says, “Germany desires to Islamize Europe.”
In December, he retweeted an X occasion titled “Islam — a worldwide drawback,” and in November, he retweeted a put up claiming “Islam shouldn’t be a faith.” The identical month, he additionally retweeted Alice Weidel, co-chairwoman of the far-right Different for Germany, who accused former Chancellor Angela Merkel of inflicting “severe harm” to Germany, blaming her for “uncontrolled mass immigration.”
In November, al-Abdulmohsen referred to as Geert Wilders, chief of the Dutch anti-immigrant Celebration for Freedom, a “true hero” on X. Wilders has been criticized as Islamophobic for evaluating the Quran to Adolf Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” and calling Moroccans “scum.”
The German police declined to touch upon al-Abdulmohsen’s X account as a result of ongoing investigation.
In 2019, al-Abdulmohsen instructed the newspaper FAZ that he left Islam in his early 20s after pretending he was nonetheless a Muslim. He defined that when he registered on Twitter, his intent was “solely to criticize Islam.”
The Salus clinic on the Bernburg psychiatric hospital confirmed in an e-mail to NBC Information that the suspect used to work for it as a specialist in psychiatry and was off-duty for the reason that finish of October as a result of “trip and sickness.”
The NGO Support for Secular Refugees said Saturday that “in 2019, members of Secular Refugee Support filed a criticism with the police following the vilest slander and verbal assaults by (al-Abdulmohsen),” including it was “unable to seek out any cause to clarify his defamation marketing campaign and the aggressiveness of his accusations.”
Al-Abdulmohsen additionally posted a video the place he used an AI avatar of Elon Musk to criticize the German authorities for what he mentioned was its suppression of free speech and enabling the abuse of Saudi refugees.
He had beforehand reposted the tech billionaire, who expressed his assist for AfD final week, writing on X: “Solely the AfD can save Germany.”
