The German government, criticized for failing to prevent a a deadly car-ramming attack at the Christmas market, said Monday that this tragedy would have been difficult to prevent and he said that the suspect appearing to be mentally disturbed.
Interior Minister Nancy Faeser and security and intelligence officials faced questions from a parliamentary committee about the attack that killed five people and injured more than 200, and whether there were any missed leads and lax security.
Faeser said the reason for the December 20 attack in the eastern city of Magdeburg, where a Saudi-born doctor who had lived in Germany for years was arrested, had not yet been established, but said there were “significant signs of mental illness.” “
He added that lessons need to be learned about tracking potential attackers who do not fit the usual categories of threats and are “mentally disturbed and… driven by confused ideas of integration.”
The minister said “such attackers do not fit any threat profile” – such as right-wing extremists or Islamists – and warned that German security forces would need “other indicators and operational plans” to deal with them in the future.
The suspect, called Taleb A. by German officials, was identified by BBC News and the AFP news agency as Taleb al-Abdulmohsen. He arrived in Germany in 2006 and was granted refugee status 10 years later.
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Police arrested him at the scene where a car was used as a weapon – a technique previously used in jihadist attacks.
In 2016, Islamic extremist plowing through a bustling Christmas market in Berlin with the truck, 13 people died and many were injured. The attacker was killed days after the shooting. That same year, ISIS wants after another attacker killed 86 people in a truck attack on the area The French city of Nice.
Abdulmohsen, by contrast, has in the past expressed strong anti-Islamic views and sympathies for the extreme right in his social media posts, as well as anger at Germany for allowing so many Muslim refugees and other asylum seekers.
Faeser said there are “tens of thousands of tweets” the suspect wrote over the years that are yet to be fully examined.
“That explains why everything is not on the table yet,” he said. “Who knew what clues and what was transmitted there should be carefully clarified.”
Reuters reported that he posted scathing comments about X, among other things blaming Germany’s supposed liberalism for the death of the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates, and accusing the police of stealing a USB stick and destroying a criminal complaint he had filed.
Abdulmohsen, 50, is the only suspect in the incident when a rented BMW car crashed into a crowd of people who were reveling and moving at high speed, leaving behind a number of accidents.
He is in custody on five counts of murder and 205 counts of attempted murder, prosecutors said, but so far no terrorism-related charges.
The state premier of Saxony-Anhalt, Reiner Haseloff, described it at the time as a “single attack.”
According to media reports citing unnamed German security sources, the suspect had been treated for mental illness and was found to be in possession of drugs the night he was arrested. A German media investigation into Abdulmohsen’s past and his social media accounts have elicited expressions of anger and frustration, as well as threats of violence against German citizens and politicians.
German police said they contacted Abdulmohsen in September 2023 and October 2024, then tried several times but failed to meet him again in December.
According to Reuters, Holger Muench, president of the criminal police office (BKA), said that Abdulmohsen “made insults and even threats. But he was not known for acts of violence.”
Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who is in charge of the national elections in February, told the news site T-online that officials will “carefully examine whether there were any errors by the authorities” and whether there were any missed indications during the election. to attack.
Saudi Arabia said it had repeatedly warned Germany about Abdulmohsen, but according to Reuters, police said they found the allegations to be very vague.
Forward February electionThe carnage at the Christmas market has sparked a heated debate about immigration and security, after a series of deadly knife attacks this year blamed on Islamic extremists.
After Monday’s hearing, lawyer Konstantin Kuhle of the Free Democrats said “federal and state authorities know this perpetrator.” But Kuhle said no authority has connected all the dots and said “we do not have a complete list of all the contacts with the authorities as of today.”
Faeser said having a full picture of all the details would have been good but would not have “prevented” the attack.
Lawyer Gottfried Curio of the far-right and anti-immigration Alternative of Germany group was particularly scathing in his criticism.
“Everything was visible to everyone,” he charged. “We have hundreds of dangerous people in this country, let them run.”
“What we need is deportation, instead we get authorization documents to return to the country. What is needed now is a change in the country’s security policy.”
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