On social media, he has been a fervent critic of Islam and prosecutors instructed he could have grow to be embittered with how Germany treats Saudi refugees.
Current messages have grown more and more threatening. One says “if Germany desires to kill us, we are going to slaughter them, die, or go to jail with delight”.
“The accused was taken to a correctional facility accordingly.”
The police additionally launched extra particulars on the victims of Friday’s assault. The useless embody a nine-year-old boy and 4 ladies aged 45, 52, 67 and 75, in accordance with the assertion.
The assault has been met with confusion and anger from the general public and politicians, with questions raised over potential safety lapses simply two months earlier than federal elections the place immigration is more likely to be a flashpoint problem.
Germany stepped up safety at Christmas markets – a fixture of the festive season – following a lethal automobile ramming in Berlin in 2016.
However Magdeburg police chief Tom-Oliver Langhans mentioned on Saturday that the attacker was in a position to acquire entry to the market utilizing emergency exit factors, often reserved for ambulances and different emergency autos.
On the identical convention, metropolis official Ronni Krug insisted the safety idea for the Magdeburg Christmas market was “always being revised and modified”
“How this case may come about should first be investigated by the police. I cannot bask in hypothesis,” Krug mentioned.
“However you possibly can relaxation assured that we’ll proceed to replace the safety idea, which we’re always updating anyway, as soon as we’ve reached an evaluation with our colleagues from the police.”
Saudi authorities had beforehand warned their German counterparts concerning the suspected attacker, on a number of events, two sources with information of the communications informed CNN.
CNN reached out to the German Overseas Ministry for remark concerning the warnings and was referred to the Ministry of Inside, which in flip referred CNN to the general public prosecutor’s workplace in Magdeburg. CNN has not acquired a response from the prosecutor’s workplace.
However chatting with German public broadcaster ZDF, Holger Münch, the president of Germany’s federal felony workplace confirmed, “We ourselves have been as soon as the recipient of a tip-off from Saudi Arabia in November 2023”.
He mentioned proceedings have been initiated and Saxony-Anhalt police took “applicable investigative measures” nonetheless the data that they had on Taleb al-Abdulmohsen was too “unspecific” and he was “not identified for violent acts”.
German politicians from reverse ends of the political spectrum seized on Friday’s lethal assault to assault the coalition authorities.
Sahra Wagenknecht, chief of the far-left Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance celebration, referred to as for Inside Minister Nancy Faeser to clarify “why so many ideas and warnings have been ignored beforehand”.
Bernd Baumann, the parliamentary head of the far-right Various for Germany (AfD), demanded a particular parliamentary session be referred to as to debate safety points, in a submit on X.