Germany set to investigate warnings over Magdeburg attacker

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The German government has promised to investigate what authorities knew about a man charged with a fatal attack on a Christmas market in Magdeburg after multiple agencies admitted receiving warnings about him.

Interior minister Nancy Faeser pledged to find out what action had been taken by the authorities in response to several tip-offs about Taleb al-Abdulmohsen, the 50-year-old Saudi dissident accused of killing five people and injuring 200 more.

The investigation “will examine exactly what warnings were made in the past and how they were investigated,” Faeser told the tabloid Bild am Sonntag.

The head of the country’s federal police service confirmed on Saturday night that the agency had received a warning from Saudi Arabia in November 2023 about al-Abdulmohsen.

Holger Münch told the public broadcaster ZDF that police in the state of Saxony-Anhalt took “appropriate investigative measures” after the alert from the Saudi authorities.

Münch said that the alleged assailant, whom police said on Sunday had been charged with multiple counts of murder and attempted murder, had himself had various contacts with authorities, including “insults and sometimes threats”. 

Germany’s office for migration and refugees confirmed on Sunday that it received a warning about al-Abdulmohsen and said that it was passed on to the responsible authorities, adding: “This tip, like all of the many other tips, was taken seriously.”

On Sunday, the interior minister in the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, where al-Abdulmohsen lived for around five years, confirmed that the suspect had been fined for “disturbing public peace” after a dispute with a local medical association.

The state’s interior minister, Christian Pegel, said that the Saudi national had threatened in 2013 to commit an act that would attract international attention and made reference to that year’s attack on the Boston marathon that left three people dead.

Pegel said that al-Abdulmohsen’s home had been searched in response, but no evidence of any preparation was found, nor any Islamist links.

Andrea Lindholz, a member of parliament with the opposition Christian Socialist Union, said on Sunday that there were “questions about what the authorities knew about the warnings from home and abroad” and called for answers.

Münch, the police chief, said that the tip about the suspect, who was not known for violent offences, was “unspecific”. He added that he appeared to be an “atypical perpetrator” who did not fit the usual pattern.

The Magdeburg attack, which killed four adults and a nine-year-old boy, triggered an outpouring of grief across Germany and cast a dark shadow over the final weekend before Christmas. 

“There is no more peaceful and cheerful place than a Christmas market,” Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on a visit to the city on Saturday. “What a terrible act it is to injure and kill so many people there with such brutality.”

On Sunday, France’s Europe minister, Benjamin Haddad, is expected to travel to Magdeburg to express his condolences.

Al-Abdulmohsen, a Saudi dissident who described himself as an ex-Muslim, wrote on social media that “something big will happen in Germany”. He was described by authorities as a 50-year-old doctor from Saudi Arabia who came to Germany in 2006 and had been working as a psychiatrist.

He had expressed sympathy for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) and accused his adopted home country of promoting the Islamification of Europe.

Prosecutors said he may have been motivated by frustration at the way that some refugees and asylum seekers were treated in Germany.

In an interview with the doctor published 10 days ago by the American platform RAIR, which describes itself as an anti-Muslim grassroots organisation, he accused the German police of deliberately destroying the lives of Saudi asylum seekers who had renounced Islam. 

The confusing picture prompted a cautious response to the attack from the opposition Christian Democratic Union (CDU), which is leading the polls ahead of early nationwide elections that are due to take place at the end of February. 

CDU leader and candidate for chancellor Friedrich Merz, said on Saturday that the unusual profile of the suspect obliged politicians to “pause first and judge what happened . . . only on the basis of reliable information.”

Even before Friday’s attack, Scholz’s government was under pressure over security after a fatal stabbing in the city of Solingen in August. 

Police said that there were scuffles at a protest attended by around 2,000 people on Saturday night, where people wearing black balaclavas held a large banner bearing the word “remigration”, a term used by far-right supporters to advocate for the mass deportation of migrants.